Genetic divergence in jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lamk.)

Abstract

The jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lamk.) is highly heterozygous and cross pollinated tree and as such seedlings exhibits a wide range of variations which aid in the selection of superior desirable types. Due to cross pollination and predominance of seed propagation over long period of time, there is high degree of genetic diversity within the species. Improvement in yield and quality of highly cross-pollinated crops like jackfruit is generally achieved by selecting genotypes with desirable character combinations existing in nature. Mahalanobis [1] D2 statistic which is based on multivariate analysis of quantitative traits is a powerful tool for measuring the divergence among a set populations. Therefore, an attempt was made to study the multivariate analysis of genetic divergence in jackfruit.