Morphological and Molecular Characterization of Bael Aegle marmelos Correa Genotypes in Jammu Region

Abstract

newline The present investigation entitled Morphological and Molecular Characterization of Bael (Aeglemarmelos Correa) Genotypes in Jammu Region was undertaken during 2020-21 and 2021-22 in different districts of Jammu province to assess the genetic variability of seedling bael genotypes. On the basis of study conducted, the morphological and biochemical traits were recorded as per DUS descriptor. The results of studies showed that there was a marked variation in eighty seedling origin bael genotypes compare with NB-5 and NB-9 where JMU-Bael newline(Sel-27) showed the best results among all the collected genotypes. The seedling grown bael genotype JMU-Bael (Sel-27) recorded maximum fruit length (12.05 cm), fruit width (11.72 cm), fruit weight (917.65 g), pulp weight (746.81 g), pulp percentage (81.38 %), number of fruit per tree (130.00) and highest total fruit yield (110.80 kg/tree) respectively. Similarly, the seedling grown bael genotype JMU-Bael (Sel-27) also recorded maximum flower length (18.73 mm), flower width (36.55 mm), bud length (13.24 mm) and bud width (9.85 mm). The biochemical characteristics of seedling grown bael selection JMU-Bael (Sel-27) showed maximum TSS of mucilage (49.60 0brix), TSS of pulp (36.77 0brix), total sugar (21.17 %), reducing sugar (9.58 %), non-reducing sugar (11.59 %), ascorbic acid (25.45 mg/100g). newlineThe molecular characterization of eighty seedling origin bael genotypes compare with NB-5 and NB-9 was carried out using 27 microsatellite markers. Major allele frequency ranged from 0.307 (CT02) to 0.784 (CT21) with an average of 0.541. Polymorphic information content (PIC) ranged from 0.287 (CCSM147) to 0.729 (CT02) with an average of 0.503.Eighty seedling origin bael genotypes compare with NB-5 and NB-9 were subjected to STRUCTUREanalysis in which three sub-populations were detected. The dendrogram was generated using SSR data to determine pairwise distance between all possible pairs of eighty seedling origin bael genotypes with NB-5 and NB-9. The genotypes were divided in