Abstract:
Spinach is a leafy green vegetable cultivated in most part of the world due to its nutritive and
medicinal value. Fifty-one germplasm of spinach (Spinacia oleracea L.) collected from diverse
geographical region of Bangladesh were evaluated to assess their diversity using several
qualitative and quantitative characters. Variation was found in all the characters except
Inflorescence color and seed type. Leaf shape was exhibited as elliptic, broad elliptic, ovate and
broad ovate where elliptic shape was found in maximum germplasm. The highest quantitative
variation was observed in edible leaf weight per plant followed by petiole length and number of
lateral branches. Germplasm TRMR-95, NT-34, TRMR-136, NRI-121 had longer leaf and NRI121, TRMR-136, RC-139, TRMR-12 and NT-33 had broader leaf. Germplasm RC-139 had
highest number of lateral branches. The germplasm NQ-68 required maximum days for bolting
which was followed by TRMR-136 and RNF-126 that was most important characters for
spinach. The dendrogram shown that the maximum thirty-six germplasm were grouped into
cluster I and Cluster IV was occupied by only one germplasm. The maximum cluster mean value
was observed in Cluster II for the characters leaf length, leaf width and edible leaf weight per
plant. The first PC explained 37.10% of the total variability and the second PC explained 22.90%
of the variation among fifty-one spinach germplasm. Populations with high scores for the first
eigenvectors are leaf length (0.4860), leaf width (0.4827) and petiole length (0.4792) these traits
were the most important contributors towards diversity of the germplasm in PC1. Considering
leaf characters and bolting time, germplasm TRMR-136, TRMR-144, R-342, RNF-26, NQ-68
and RC-139 were selected for future breeding program. |
