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Genetic divergence for yield and yield-contributing traits in cucumber
(Cucumis sativus L.)

H. R. Sharma and Deepa Sharma
Dr. Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry

Horticultural Research Station
Kandaghat, District Solan, Himachal Pradesh - 173 215 India

E-mail: hrs_kgt@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

The cluster analysis grouped the thirty one genotypes of cucumber, collected from different sources in India,
into seven clusters. The genotypes Jorji Local, Bengal 60, JJL and Derabassi Local were promising with respect
to yield per plant and fruit length, while Gyn-2, Gyn-3 and Gyn-4 were superior for number of fruits per plant.
However, genotypes Chakkimore local, Farukabad Local, Chamoli Local and Chamba Local were promising
for average fruit weight and fruit breadth.

Key words: Cluster analysis, cucumber, genetic divergence, Cucumis sativus L.

Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) is an important
vegetable crop that has its origins in the Indian sub-
continent. A lot of diversity in this crop exists in the country.
But, most of the farmers grow their own land races to fulfil
their domestic or local market demands. A huge portion of
the diversity is, thus, still restricted to kitchen gardens or
individual farms. Hence, efforts were made to collect this
diversity from farmers’  fields or kitchen gardens from all
over India and to use it in active crop improvement
programmes. In this study, the non-hierarchical clustering
approach was employed to evaluate and assess  genetic
divergence among  genotypes/land races and to select   elite
ones for further crop improvement.

The experimental material comprised of 31
genotypes/land races of cucumber collected from different
sources in India. The experiment was laid out at Dr. Y.S.
Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry,
Horticultural Research Station, Kandaghat, Solan
(Himachal Pradesh) during Kharif, 2005.The experimental
site is situated at an altitude of 1270m above mean sea level,
lying between latitude 30o52’ North and longitude 77o11’
East. It falls under the mid hill zone of Himachal Pradesh.
The climate ranges from sub-tropical to sub-temperate.
Sixteen plants of each genotype were transplanted at the
recommended spacing of 1.5 X 1.0 m. Standard cultural
practices to raise the cucumber crop in mid hills were

followed as per  recommendations of package of practices
developed by the University.

The observations on number of fruits per plant,
yield per plant, average fruit weight, fruit length and fruit
width were recorded on 10 randomly selected competitive
plants from each plot. Mean values in each replication for
all the traits were subjected to statistical analysis. Genetic
divergence analysis was performed  using non-hierarchical
Euclidean cluster analysis (Spark, 1973).

The performance of 31 genotypes of cucumber with
respect to fruit yield and fruit traits is given in table 1.

Cluster analysis grouped the genotypes of
cucumber into seven clusters. The maximum number of
genotypes (7 genotypes) were grouped in cluster I followed
by cluster V and Cluster VII (5 genotypes each), cluster II
and Cluster VI (4 genotypes each), and, cluster III and
cluster IV (3 genotypes each). The composition of the
clusters is given in table 2.

Intra-cluster distances (Table 3) revealed that the
maximum divergence was present in cluster II (1.319),
followed by cluster VI (1.135) and cluster VII (1.127). The
lowest value of intra-cluster distance (0.769) was observed
for cluster III indicating limited genetic divergence in this
group. The maximum inter-cluster distance (4.875) was
observed for cluster II and cluster III, followed by cluster

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Table 1.   Performance of cucumber genotypes for fruit yield traits

Genotype Number of Fruit yield Average fruit Fruit Fruit
fruits per plant per plant (kg) weight (g) length (cm) width (cm) Sex form Fruit colour

K-75 12.0 3.6 300.0 17.5 7.1 Monoecious Light green
K-90 13.0 4.1 320.0 20.1 7.6 Monoecious Light green
Gyn-1 18.0 4.5 250.0 13.5 6.0 Gynoecious Dark green
Gyn-2 19.0 4.7 250.0 17.0 8.0 Gynoecious Light green
Gyn-3 20.0 5.5 275.0 21.5 7.5 Gynoecious Dark green
Gyn-4 19.0 5.7 300.0 20.0 8.5 Gynoecious Light green
MNCC 01 11.0 2.7 250.0 12.5 6.2 Monoecious Light green
MNCC 02 12.0 3.0 250.0 13.0 6.5 Monoecious Light green
MNCC 03 12.0 3.7 312.5 13.5 7.0 Monoecious Light green
EC 173931   8.0 3.4 425.0 26.0 6.4 Monoecious Green
EC 173940   9.0 2.5 277.7 20.5 6.8 Monoecious Green
EC 173971   7.0 2.8 407.1 19.2 7.3 Monoecious Green
Poinsett-76   8.0 2.0 250.0 12.9 5.7 Monoecious Dark green
Market More 10.0 3.6 366.0 19.5 6.8 Monoecious Green
Sheetal 11.0 3.0 280.0 23.4 7.6 Monoecious Light green
Orissa Local   9.0 3.1 350.0 21.8 6.9 Monoecious Dark green
Sanech Local   6.0 3.6 600.0 22.5 6.5 Monoecious Light green
Subathu local   7.0 2.8 407.1 19.7 7.0 Monoecious Light green
Jorji Local 14.0 5.9 425.0 29.0 7.5 Monoecious Light green
Chakkimor Local   9.0 4.5 500.0 25.0 8.5 Monoecious Light green
Faizabad Local   8.0 3.6 450.0 17.8 6.3 Monoecious Green
Hisar Local   7.0 3.3 471.4 19.5 6.4 Monoecious Green
Farukabad Local 12.0 5.2 433.3 22.5 9.0 Monoecious Light green
Bengal 60 14.0 6.1 439.2 18.0 7.5 Monoecious Dark green
Kanpur Local   7.0 3.2 464.2 20.5 7.0 Monoecious Dark green
Chamoli Local   8.0 3.8 475.0 22.0 9.0 Monoecious Green
Pilibhit Local   6.0 2.8 475.0 17.0 6.4 Monoecious Green
JJK 10.0 6.2 625.0 25.0 8.0 Monoecious Light green
Derabassi Local 11.0 5.9 536.3 22.0 7.5 Monoecious Light green
Chamba Local   6.0 3.9 650.0 19.5 8.5 Monoecious Green
Himangi 13.0 4.4 338.4 15.5 7.5 Monoecious White
Mean 10.4 4.1 392.0 19.5 7.2 - -

III and cluster VI (4.703), cluster I and cluster IV (4.251),
and cluster III and cluster IV (4.221). Parents selected from
these clusters may, thus, provide a broader genetic base for
crop improvement programmes and may produce heterotic
hybrids or transgressive segregants in later generations.
Similar findings have also been reported earlier in some
genotypes of cucumber (Prasad et al 1993, 2001; More and
Seshadri 2002; Rao et al, 2003; Xu et al 2003). They too
adopted the clustering approach to identify parents for crop
improvement programmes.

Cluster means (Table 4) for different traits indicated

that maximum number of fruits per plant (19.3) was
produced by  members of cluster IV, whereas, yield per
plant and fruit length were maximum for cluster II (6.0 kg
and 23.5 cm, respectively). However, maximum average
fruit weight (514.5 g) and fruit breadth (8.7 cm) were
observed for cluster VI.

The genotypes Jorji Local, Bengal 60, JJL and
Derabassi Local are promising with respect to yield per
plant and fruit length while, Gyn-2, Gyn-3 and Gyn-4 are
superior for number of fruits per plant. However, genotypes
Chakkimore local, Farukabad Local, Chamoli local and

Table 2. Composition of clusters in cucumber

Cluster Number of genotypes Genotypes

I 7 EC 173971, Sanech Local, Subathu local, Faizabad Local, Hisar Local, Kanpur Local, Pilibhit Local
II 4 Jorji Local, Bengal 60, JJK, Derabassi Local
III 3 MNCC 01, MNCC 02, Poinsett-76
IV 3 Gyn-2, Gyn-3, Gyn-4
V 5 EC 173931, EC 173940, Market More, Sheetal, Orissa Local
VI 4 Chakkimor Local, Farukabad Local, Chamoli Local, Chamba Local
VII 5 K-75, K-90, Gyn-1, MNCC 02, Himangi

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Table 3.  Intra and inter cluster distance values in cucumber

Cluster I II III IV V VI VII

I 0.831
II 3.162 1.319
III 2.760 4.875 0.675
IV 4.251 2.914 4.221 0.769
V 1.461 3.074 2.659 3.450 0.959
VI 2.729 2.152 4.703 3.626 2.807 1.135
VII 2.508 3.130 2.058 2.267 2.048 3.325 1.127

Table 4.  Cluster means for five characters in cucumber

Cluster Number of Yield per Average Fruit Fruit
Fruits plant fruit length width
per plant (kg) weight (g) (cm) (cm)

I 6.8 3.1 467.8 19.4 6.7
II 12.2 6.0 506.4 23.5 7.6
III 10.3 2.5 250.0 12.8 6.1
IV 19.3 5.3 275.0 19.5 8.0
V 9.4 3.1 339.7 22.2 6.9
VI 8.7 4.3 514.5 22.2 8.7
VII 13.6 4.0 304.1 16.0 7.0

Table 5.  Promising genotypes for different traits

Trait Genotypes

Number of fruit Gyn-2, Gyn-3, Gyn-4
per plant
Yield per plant Jorji Local, Bengal 60,

JJK, Derabassi Local
Average fruit Chakkimor Local, Farukabad Local,
weight Chamoli Local, Chamba Local
Fruit length Jorji Local, Bengal 60, JJK,

Derabassi Local
Fruit width Chakkimor Local, Farukabad Local,

Chamoli Local, Chamba Local

(MS Received 30 September 2006, Revised 29 November 2006)

Chamba Local are the promising ones for average fruit
weight and fruit breadth (Table 5).

REFERENCES

More, T.A. and Seshadri, V.S. 2002. Studies on genetic
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Prasad, V.S.R.K., Jain, B.P., Verma, S.P.P. and Ganguly,
D.K. 2001. Diversity pattern and choice of parents
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sativus L.). J. Res. Birsa Agri. Univ., 13: 33 39

Prasad, V.S.R.K., Singh, D.P. and Singh, R.P.. 1993.
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Xu QiAng Liu JinSheng, Chen XueHao,  Li LingLi , Go
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