Genetic divergence among Piel Del Sapo melon lines

Abstract

The objective of this work was to study the genetic divergence among lines of Pele de Sapo melon evaluated in Mossoró-RN, Brazil. Twenty lines were evaluated in a randomized block design with three replications. The genetic divergence was evaluated by multivariate procedures: generalized distance of Mahalanobis, methods of grouping optimization of Tocher and UPGMA. The traits assessed were: The traits evaluated were: total number of fruits, productivity, average weight of fruits, transversal diameter, diameter longitudinal, format index, internal cavity, pulp thickness, pulp firmness, soluble solids content, concentration of harvesting and weight loss. There was partial concordance regarding the composition of the groups formed by the methods of optimizing Tocher and UPGMA. The traits that most contributed to the divergence have been pulp firmness (20.69%) and soluble solids (10.94%). The presence of genetic variability allowed the identification of cultivars dissimilar and with a mean high for the traits studied. The crosses suggested in the study of genetics divergence were: SA-13 x TH-03, SA-13 x TH-04, SA-13 x TH-05, SA-13 x TH-07, SA-13 x TH-09, SA-13 x SA-17, TH-05 x TH-04, TH-05 x SA-10, TH-05 x SA-12, TH-05 x SA-14 and TH-05 x SA-14.