R. Swamy Sekhar1* and S. Kundu2
Abstract: The genetic diversity of acid lime was analyzed across one hundred genotypes in twelve West Bengal districts, using 22 quantitative characters for characterization. The data was statistically processed for descriptive, hierarchical cluster, discriminate, correlation and principal component analysis. Descriptive analysis revealed a prominent variation in all quantitative characters among different lime collections, with wide variations recorded in eleven quantitative characters (fruit weight, rind thickness, vesicle length, juice weight, juice volume, juice percentage, number of seeds per fruit, seed weight, seed length, seed width and non-reducing sugars). Ward’s cluster analysis divided 100 lime genotypes into 5 clusters. Canonical discriminant function revealed that the major characters responsible for such clustering were fruit weight, vesicle length, seed length and seed width. PCA resulted in 9 components with a cumulative variance of 78.40 %. The biplot clarified the relation between genotypes and variables and the fruit characters distributed in the biplot contributed a considerable role to the differentiation of acid lime genotypes.
