MORPHOMETRIC CHARACTERIZATION OF COCONUT CERMPLASM

Abstract

An experiment was conducted at the Pomology Research Field. I-IRC of BAR!, Gazipur. Bangladesh during the period from September 2011 to February 2012 to evaluate the morphometric characterization of coconut germplasm. High diversity were observed in stem structure (0.97), pigmentation of leaf petiole (0.82), bole category (0.82), number of bunches per palm (0.79), girth at bole (0.77), girth at stem (0.77), length of II leaf sears (0.77), number of nuts per bunch (0.76) and number of nuts per palm (0.76). In the infloreseence, variation were high for duration of male phase (0.88), number of spikelets per infloreseence (0.85), length of central axis (0.84) while low diversity was observed in duration of female phase (0.47) and in crown shape (0.43). PCA revealed that days to spathe opening, days to male phase and number of nuts per palm contributed tbr 66.73% of the observed variation. Twenty seven entries of coconut were grouped into 7 clusters. The largest cluster VII included 9 palms, cluster VI, V and II included 8. 4 and 3 palms respectively while cluster 1. 111 and IV included I palm. The inter-cluster values were maximum in between clusters III and VII (82.455) while it was minimum in between 11 and IV (22.351). The intra-cluster distance was maximum in cluster VII (13.210) while the clusters I, III and IV showed no distance. So, the clusters between ill and VII could be used as germplasm for future breeding.