THESIS
THESIS
THESIS
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Stratifying the accessions into 10 clusters showed variability among<br />
accessions brought about their distinguishing external characteristics. Component<br />
accessions per cluster and subcluster were presented in Table 9 and the morphological<br />
characters based on quantitative traits per cluster and subcluster was presented in<br />
Table 10.<br />
Cluster I is a largest group consisting of 30 homogeneous accessions. This<br />
cluster represents the majority (43.48 %) of accessions which had ratio scale traits<br />
considered to be similar enough to group them into one cluster.<br />
Cluster I was divided into 3 subclusters. Among the three, subcluster B was<br />
considered to be the most diverse with 13 accessions (18.84 %). Subcluster B<br />
represented the mixture accessions belonging to Solanum aethiopicum (1 accession)<br />
collected in Laos, S. aculeatissimum (1 accession) collected in Thailand, S. indicum (4<br />
accessions) collected in Laos, S. melongena (3 accessions) collected in Thailand and<br />
S. xanthocarpum (4 accessions) collected in Thailand and Malaysia. Subcluster B can<br />
be distinguished from the rest (subclusters A and C) by having the intermediate<br />
variability for the traits used except for number of fruit per infructescence which is the<br />
largest (1.88).<br />
Subcluster A consist of S. melongena collected in Thailand (7 accessions),<br />
Laos (3 accessions), S. aculeatissimum (1 accession) collected in Thailand and S.<br />
xanthocarpum (1 accession) collected in Thailand .The uniqueness of this subcluster<br />
is characterized by having the shortest period to germinate (6 days), the shortest<br />
cotyledon leaf length/width ratio (2.11), smallest plant breadth (83.55 cm), the least<br />
number of plant branching (9.95), the shortest leaf blade width (16.13 cm), the least<br />
number of flower per inflorescence (3.95 flowers) and the shortest period of flowering<br />
time (57.95 days). Also, it has the biggest cotyledon leaf width (8.29 mm), the longest<br />
fruit length (3.02 cm) and biggest fruit breadth (3.42 cm), the largest fruit stalk length<br />
(31.04 mm) and thickest fruit stalk (5.79 mm) when compared with the other<br />
subclusters.<br />
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