• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
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• 제14권1호
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• pp.23-32
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• 2007

The nature of genetic variation and diversity among the 65 multivoltine silkworm genotypes was evaluated for 16 post cocoon characters. The components of genetic variation revealed higher PCV (60.487%) and GCV (44.56%) for evenness (variation 1) followed by cohesion (PCV=55.38%, GCV=40.36%) and non-broken filament length (PCV=32.05%, GCV=31.28%). The higher heritability ($h^2$ in broad sense) was observed for boil-off loss (95.6%) followed by non-broken filament length (95.22%). The both genotypic and phenotypic correlation indicated significant positive correlation of filament length with non-broken filament length, silk recovery, raw silk, neatness, and low neatness; and negative correlation with denier, renditta and silk waste. The principal component analysis (PCA) revealed 75.381 % of total variance from the five principal components extracted. On the basis of Mahalonobis' $D^2$ values (Ward's minimum variance), the sixty-five multivoltine silkworm genotypes were classified in to 9 clusters with substantial inter and intra cluster distances. Number of genotypes included in different clusters varied from 3 to 17. The results indicated that the optimum distance obtained in cluster VII (15.059) along with higher cluster mean values especially for filament length, non broken filament length, renditta, silk recovery, silk waste, and raw silk emphasized the utilization of these genotypes in the conventional silkworm breeding programme for improvement of multivoltine silk fibre quality. The possibility of exploiting genetic variation in post cocoon traits for efficient breeding programme is discussed.