Introduction
Avocado (Persea americana Mill.) is an economically important fruit crop cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions of the world (APG III, 2009; Rohwer, Reference Rohwer, Kubitzki, Rohwer and Bittrich1993). At present, the total world production of avocados is around 10.46 million tonnes with an area of 9.54 × 105 ha. Mexico is the leading producer of avocados with 25% of world production (2.53 million tonnes) followed by Colombia, Peru, and Dominican Republic (FAO, 2023). Avocado consists of eight species and of it Mexican (P. americana var. drymifolia), Guatemalan (P. americana var. guatemalensis), and West Indian (P. americana var. americana) (Bergh and Ellstrand, Reference Bergh and Ellstrand1986; Bergh, Reference Bergh1992; Lavi et al., Reference Lavi, Saada, Ragev and Lahav2003) species have commercial importance. Avocados are a good source of bioactive compounds and minerals especially lipids, fibres, carotenoids, potassium, polyphenols, tocopherols, and phytosterols (Gomez-Caravaca et al., Reference Gomez-Caravaca, Lopez-Cobol, Verardo, Pasini, Caboni, Segura-Carretero and Fernandez-Gutierrez2015; Salazar-Lopez et al., Reference Salazar-Lopez, Dominguez-Avila, Yahia, Belmonte-Herrera, Wall-Medrano, Montalvo-Gonzalez and Gonzalez-Aguilar2020). These compounds have several confirmed health benefits against cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, etc. It is widely used in cosmetic industries for manufacturing of shampoos, lipsticks, face creams and body lotions due to the presence of high lipids. It is also used in the preparation of many food products such as guacamole, ice creams, sandwich, avocado pizza, salad, avocado toast and milkshakes (Tripathi et al., Reference Tripathi, Karunakaran, Sakthivel, Sankar, Senthil Kumar, Muralidhara, Rajendiran, Venkataravanappa, Madhu and Nesara2022).
Avocados were considered to have originated in Mexico (Knight et al., Reference Knight, Whiley, Scaffer and Wolstenholme2002; Dreher and Davenport, Reference Dreher and Davenport2013). It was distributed to several countries across the world and it was introduced to India by American missionaries during 1906 to 1914 (Raman, Reference Raman1967; Tripathi et al., Reference Tripathi, Karunakaran, Sakthivel, Sankar, Senthil Kumar, Muralidhara, Rajendiran, Venkataravanappa, Madhu and Nesara2022) and then during the Second World War. Later avocado germplasm accessions were introduced to India from different parts of the world by the Government of Mysore (Tripathi et al., Reference Tripathi, Karunakaran, Sakthivel, Sankar, Senthil Kumar, Muralidhara, Rajendiran, Venkataravanappa, Madhu and Nesara2022; Muralidhara et al., Reference Muralidhara, Sakthivel, Reddy, Karunakaran, Venkatravanappa, Savadi, Divya, Naresh, Shivashankara, Venugopalan and Honnabyraiah2024). Avocados are grown mainly in hilly regions of South India and North Eastern states of India as homestead or backyard crops (Ghosh, Reference Ghosh2000; Muralidhara et al., Reference Muralidhara, Sakthivel, Karunakaran, Venugopalan, Venkatravanappa, Savadi, KarthikNayaka, Shivashankara and Honnabyraiah2023b). The main mode of propagation in avocados is through a seed which has resulted in creating wide variability with respect to morphological traits (Muralidhara et al., Reference Muralidhara, Sakthivel, Reddy, Karunakaran, Venkatravanappa, Savadi, Divya, Naresh, Shivashankara, Venugopalan and Honnabyraiah2024).
In recent years, interest in commercial cultivation of avocados has gained momentum in India and other countries due to the delicious nature of the fruit and several health benefits. Collection and characterization of germplasm accessions is very important in crop improvement especially for the unexploited crops like avocados. Further, fruit tree diversity plays a major role in environmental and cultural aspects, like diet and economy of community or country (Sarr et al., Reference Sarr, Goeschl and Swanson2008; Rincon-Hernandez et al., Reference Rincon-Hernandez, Sanchez Perez and Espinosa-Garcia2011). Several studies have been conducted to characterize, manage, and conserve avocado germplasm in different parts of the world like Mexico (Mendez-Zuniga et al., Reference Mendez-Zuniga, Corrales-Garcia, Gutierrez-Grijalva, Garcia-Mateos, Perez-Rubio and Heredia2019; Ramos-Aguilar et al., Reference Ramos-Aguilar, Ornelas-Paz, Tapia-Vargas, Gardea-Bejar, Yahia, Ornelas-Paz, Cruz, Rios-Velasco and Ibarra-Junquera2021), Colombia (Alvarez et al., Reference Alvarez, Gutierrez, Valencia, Mossos, Rozo and Hurtado2020), Guatemala (Ruiz-Chutan et al., Reference Ruiz-Chutan, Kalousova, Manourova, Degu, Berduo-Sandoval, Villanueva-Gonzalez and Lojka2023), Brazil (Oliveira et al., Reference Oliveira, Pio, Ramos, Lima, Pasqual and Santos2013), Tanzania (Juma et al., Reference Juma, Nyomora, Hovmalm, Fatih, Geleta, Carlsson and Ortiz2020), Ghana (Nkansah et al., Reference Nkansah, Ofosu-Budu and Ayarna2013) and Indonesia (Yunus et al., Reference Yunus, Handayani, Hafifah and Rahmiyati2019) using mainly morphological and biochemical characteristics.
However there are no systematic studies on characterization of the existing germplasm for economically important traits especially with respect to the pomological characteristics of Indian avocados (Tripathi et al., Reference Tripathi, Karunakaran, Sakthivel, Sankar, Senthil Kumar, Muralidhara, Rajendiran, Venkataravanappa, Madhu and Nesara2022). As a result, the crop improvement programmes met with little success, leading to a limited number of commercial varieties available for cultivation in India. In this study, a comprehensive assessment of the morpho-biochemical variability in Indian avocados was carried out for the first time. The study showed wide variability with respect to studied characteristics and resulted in identification of genotypes with commercially important traits like fruit size, pulp percent, oil content, carotenoids, which have potential use in crop improvement.
Materials and methods
The present study was carried out in 83 avocado accessions which were collected through intensive survey from the major avocado growing states of India i.e., Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala (Table S1) during 2019–20 and 2020–21 in the same cropping season. The sampling was carried out during the same season in both years. The sampling strategy for germplasm collection aimed to ensure more diversity while avoiding closely related trees. The accessions were selected based on the unique leaf, fruit, seed, pulp and other useful agronomic characteristics. The thirty representative fruit samples were collected from all the directions of the selected tree. The collected fruits were brought to main laboratory at room temperature in paper covers within a day and kept for uniform ripening at room temperature. Fifteen uniformly ripened fruits were used for recording following morphological and biochemical characteristics.
Morphological characterization
The 83 avocado accessions were characterized for morphological traits such as leaf length (cm), leaf width (cm), pedicel diameter (cm), fruit weight (g), fruit length (cm), fruit width (cm), pulp weight (gm), pulp per cent, peel weight (g), peel percent, seed weight (g), seed length (cm), seed width (cm), seed per cent, peel thickness (mm), length and breadth of seed cavity. Morphological observations were recorded in 15 mature fruit samples, 15 seeds and 30 leaves from each accession. Digital Vernier callipers were used for measurement of the physical dimensions and electronic balance was used for weight measurement.
Biochemical characterization
All the collected accessions were characterized for different biochemical traits such as TSS (º B), total antioxidant activity, total phenols (mg/100 g), total carotenoids (mg/100 g), oil content (%), dry matter content (%), moisture content (%) and crude fibre content (%).The biochemical analysis was carried out with three replications; five fruits were used for each replication. The pulp of fruits was extracted and homogenized using mixer grinder and the homogenized pulp was used for biochemical characterization. The total soluble solids (TSS) in fruit pulp were determined by using digital refractometer and expressed in ºBrix. The ferric reducing antioxidant potential was estimated using the method given by Benzie and Strain (Reference Benzie and Strain1996) and absorbance was read at 593 nm. The results were expressed as ascorbic acid equivalent antioxidant capacity (AEAC). Folin–Ciocalteau Reagent method given by Singleton and Rossi (Reference Singleton and Rossi1965) was used for the estimation of phenols with slight modifications and recorded the readings in a spectrophotometer at 700 nm. The results were expressed as mg GAE per 100 gram of fresh pulp. The moisture content (%) was determined by taking the difference of fresh and dry weight of pulp as given by Rangana (Reference Rangana1986). Total carotenoids content were analysed by spectrophotometric method developed by Lichtenthaler (Reference Lichtenthaler1987) and recorded the absorbance at 470 nm. The carotene content was calculated using the standard curve of β-carotene and results were expressed in mg/100 g of fresh weight. The dry matter remained after complete drying of pulp in hot air oven for 36–48 h at 60°C or up to the attainment of constant weight was expressed in percentage.
The oil content (%) of pulp was estimated on dry weight basis in the dried pulp using a Soxhlet apparatus according to the method described by Horwitz and Latimer (Reference Horwitz and Latimer2007). About 10–15 g of pulp dried at 60°C for 36-48 h was used for oil extraction using petroleum ether (40–60°C) as solvent at 60°C for 6 h. The extraction flasks were allowed to dry at room temperature for 24–36 h to remove the remains of ether. The extracted oil was kept in the bottle and stored at −20°C until further use. Oil yield was expressed as the percent of oil.
Total crude fibre content was estimated using FOSS fibre analyzer as per the method developed by the Maynard (Reference Maynard1970). Two grams of defatted avocado dried pulp powder was placed in thimbles and boiled with 200 ml of sulphuric acid solution for 30 min in FOSS fibre analyzer. After acid wash the sample was washed in boiling water for 2–3 times to remove acid content. The sample was again boiled with 200 ml sodium hydroxide solution for 30 min in FOSS fibre analyzer. After base wash the sample was again washed with 25 ml of boiling 1.25% H2SO4. After both acid and base washing residue was transferred to pre weighed ashing dish and sample was dried for 3–4 h at 120°C in hot air oven. After that dishes were cooled in desiccators and weight was recorded. Then dishes were ignited for 4–5 h at 600°C in muffle furnace. Later ignition the dishes were cooled in desiccators and weight was recorded. Crude fibre was expressed in the percentage.
Statistical analysis
The differences among morphological and biochemical characters of 83 accessions were evaluated for the different descriptive variables viz., mean, maximum, minimum, standard deviation, standard error, coefficient of variation and range by using WASP 2.0. The dendrogram was constructed by using Euclidean distance wards minimum variance technique for grouping the accessions (Ward, Reference Ward1963) by using statistical analysis system (SAS V 9.3, 2012). The principal component analysis (PCA) was performed to know the relationships between the collected accessions for morphological and biochemical traits by using GRAPES R statistics software (Gopinath et al., Reference Gopinath, Parsad, Joseph and Adarsh2020). The first two principal components were used to create two-dimensional scatter plots due to the existence of greatest variance.
Results
Morphological traits
Descriptive statistics were analysed for 17 quantitative morphological traits across 83 avocado collections (Table 1). The wide variability for leaf length (10.7–28.0 cm), leaf width (4.63–14.5 cm), fruit length (5.69–21.79 cm), fruit width (4.77–10.88 cm), fruit weight (75.88–934.12 g), pulp weight (48.08–736.19 g), pulp per cent (54.53–85.73%), seed weight (18.05–150.67 g), seed per cent (6.37–32.62%), peel weight (9.75–73.47 g), peel per cent (4.47–20.42%), length of seed cavity (3.68–12.02 cm), width of seed cavity (3.19–6.73 cm), seed length (2.88–8.60 cm), seed width (2.88–6.78 cm), peel thickness (0.23–2.23 mm), pedicel diameter (0.56–1.48 cm) were observed in the collected accessions (Table 1 & Fig. 1). Maximum fruit weight, length and pulp weight was observed in accession PA-102 and accession PA-082 showed high pulp recovery (85.73%). Accession PA-044 recorded maximum peel weight (73.44 g) and maximum peel thickness (2.23 mm) was observed in accession PA-084. The accession PA-056 (18.05 g) showed minimum seed weight and accession PA-082 (6.37%) showed minimum seed per cent (Tables 1 & 4).
Genetic diversity in Indian avocados for fruit morphological characters.
Estimates of variability for morphological and biochemical traits of Indian avocado accessions
Biochemical traits
Eight biochemical traits were estimated in 83 avocado collected accessions (Table 1). The wide genetic variability for FRAP activity (27.65–119.81 mg AEAC/100 g), total phenols content (23.65–148.26 mg/100 g), TSS (3.83–10.97°B), moisture content (63.07–86.96%), dry matter content (13.04–36.93%), total carotenoids (0.96–7.17 mg/100 g), crude fibre (6.86–20.75%) were observed in collected accessions. The maximum FRAP activity was reported in accession PA-086 and accession PA-053 showed high phenol content. The unique yellow accession PA-026 (7.17 mg/100 g) had maximum carotenoids and PA-067 showed higher crude fibre content compared to other accessions. The high oil content was extracted from accession PA-044 (25.49%) followed by PA-043 (24.38%), PA-046 (22.81%), PA-045 (22.63%), PA-052 (22.39%) and minimum was noticed in PA-085 (Tables 1 & 4).
Cluster analysis
The grouping of accessions was made to know the existence of distinctness in collected germplasm by using 25 morphological and biochemical characters based on genetic distance (Fig. 2). The dendrogram constructed by Wards Minimum Variance method divided the accessions into two major groups. The first major group cluster-I include six accessions (PA-010, PA-012, PA-102, PA-038, PA-069, PA-103). The remaining 77 accessions were formed as second major group. This second major group is further sub divided into 2 sub-groups with 3 clusters and 5 clusters. All together there were 9 clusters, with cluster-IX containing highest number of accessions (25), followed by cluster-II (13), cluster-III (9), cluster-V (8), cluster-VIII (7), cluster-VII (6), cluster-VI (5), cluster-IV (4). The accessions which are grouped in cluster-I have large fruit size and high pulp content. Most of the small seeded varieties are grouped in cluster-II and cluster-III. The cluster-IV contains many high moisture and low fat content accessions. The accessions having high pulp per cent are grouped in cluster-V while cluster-VI consisted of many accessions having high TSS. High oil and dry matter content accessions grouped into cluster-VII. The high FRAP activity accessions were grouped in cluster-VIII and small to medium size fruits bearing accessions were grouped in cluster-IX. The accessions present in cluster-I are more distinct to cluster-IV accessions.
Dendrogram showing avocado accessions in different clusters. the 17 morphological and 8 biochemical traits of 83 avocado accessions were considered for grouping. the Euclidean distance following wards minimum variance method was used for grouping of accessions. The dendogram resulted in two major groups.
PCA
The PCA results showed wide variations among the accessions depending on morphological and biochemical traits (Fig. 3). Eigen values, per cent variability and cumulative variability for principal components of morphological and biochemical characters in avocado are furnished in Tables 2 and 3. The first ten principal components contributed 90.57 per cent of cumulative variability among which first three components showed 54.79 per cent of total variation. The first component (PC1) accounting 27.12% of total variance was strongly associated with fruit weight, pulp weight and seed weight. The second component (PC2) representing 14.53% of the total variance due to the traits such as pulp per cent, seed per cent, seed weight, moisture content and oil content. The third component (PC3) explained 13.14% of the total variance has been influenced by oil content, dry matter, moisture content and seed content. The accessions namely PA-102, PA-038, PA-012, PA-086, PA-043, PA-079, PA-056 and PA-034 were plotted away from the centre of the plot and were found to be more distinct compare to other accessions (Fig. 3). With respect to different traits fruit weight, seed weight, pulp percent, seed percent, peel percent, moisture content and dry matter content have lengthy lines which indicates the higher contribution to diversity. In PCA-biplot, the dry matter content, oil content have negative correlation with moisture content of fruit which plotted in opposite quarters and the seed weight, peel weight also showed negative correlation with pulp weight.
Biplot of the first two components (dim 1 and dim 2) resulting from the PCA analysis performed on 25 morphological and biochemical traits of 83 avocado accessions. The lines of different traits in biplot explain the contribution (direction and magnitude) of the traits in the principal components of dimension 1 and dimension 2. The position of accessions explains the distinctiveness of the accessions for different traits. The number depicts the accession numbers without the prefix PA.
Eigen values and per cent of variance for different principal components
Per cent contribution of different traits on first eight principal components
Discussion
The understanding of variability in a crop germplasm plays an important role in genetic improvement for yield and quality traits (Salgotra and Chauhan, Reference Salgotra and Chauhan2023). This present study mainly aimed at understanding the genetic diversity through morphological and biochemical analysis among accessions collected from different parts of India. The present study findings showed wide variability for key traits like fruit weight, pulp weight, seed weight, pulp per cent, carotenoids content, oil content, dry matter content and crude fibre content (Table 1 & Fig. 1). Several studies have examined the diversity of avocados in different countries (Nkansah et al., Reference Nkansah, Ofosu-Budu and Ayarna2013; Oliveira et al., Reference Oliveira, Pio, Ramos, Lima, Pasqual and Santos2013; Mendez-Zuniga et al., Reference Mendez-Zuniga, Corrales-Garcia, Gutierrez-Grijalva, Garcia-Mateos, Perez-Rubio and Heredia2019; Yunus et al., Reference Yunus, Handayani, Hafifah and Rahmiyati2019; Alvarez et al., Reference Alvarez, Gutierrez, Valencia, Mossos, Rozo and Hurtado2020; Juma et al., Reference Juma, Nyomora, Hovmalm, Fatih, Geleta, Carlsson and Ortiz2020; Ramos-Aguilar et al., Reference Ramos-Aguilar, Ornelas-Paz, Tapia-Vargas, Gardea-Bejar, Yahia, Ornelas-Paz, Cruz, Rios-Velasco and Ibarra-Junquera2021; Ruiz-Chutan et al., Reference Ruiz-Chutan, Kalousova, Manourova, Degu, Berduo-Sandoval, Villanueva-Gonzalez and Lojka2023) and reported wide variations for different pomological traits. However very limited information is available for pomological and other important traits in Indian avocados.
The physical dimensions of fruit such as weight, length, and width varied significantly among the studied avocado accessions (Tables 1 & 4). The accession PA-102 exhibited higher fruit weight compared to earlier reports (Wang et al., Reference Wang, Bostic and Gu2010; Yunus et al., Reference Yunus, Handayani, Hafifah and Rahmiyati2019). Some accessions such as PA-036, PA-082, PA-025, PA-012 showed more than 82% of pulp content, which is higher compared to the previous studies in avocado (Gomez-Lopez, Reference Gomez-Lopez2002; Oliveira et al., Reference Oliveira, Pio, Ramos, Lima, Pasqual and Santos2013). The fruit peel is important characteristic in avocados and thickness plays an important role in extension of fruit shelf life and provides tolerance to anthracnose and scab infestation (Muralidhara et al., Reference Muralidhara, Sakthivel, Karunakaran, Venugopalan, Venkatravanappa, Savadi, KarthikNayaka, Shivashankara and Honnabyraiah2023). Notably accession PA-044 (2.23 mm) had maximum peel thickness, which can be utilized in crop improvement programmes. Similar variability in terms of peel characteristics was observed in previous studies (Gomez-Lopez, Reference Gomez-Lopez2002; Rodriguez-Carpena et al., Reference Rodriguez-Carpena, Morcuende, Andrade, Kylli and Estevez2011; Oliveira et al., Reference Oliveira, Pio, Ramos, Lima, Pasqual and Santos2013; Krumreich et al., Reference Krumreich, Borges, Mendonça, Jansen-Alves and Zambiazi2018; Nair, Reference Nair2018; Yunus et al., Reference Yunus, Handayani, Hafifah and Rahmiyati2019). The wide variations were also noticed for seed size in the studied accessions. The accession PA-082 (6.37%) showed minimum seed per cent which can be utilized as potential genetic stock in breeding for high pulp content. Carotenoids contribute to good fruit appearance and have significant health benefits in human (Ashton et al., Reference Ashton, Wong, Mc Ghie, Vather, Wang, Requejo-Jackman, Ramankutty and Woolf2006; Muralidhara et al., Reference Muralidhara, Sakthivel, Shivashankara, Karunakaran, Honnabyraiah, Savadi, Venkatravanappa, Venugopalan and Reddy D.C2023a). Notably, a unique yellow colour avocado accession (PA-026) was identified and found to be superior for carotenoids content (7.17 mg/100 g) which is higher than the carotenoids content reported in earlier avocado studies (Vinha et al., Reference Vinha, Moreira and Sergio2013; Krumreich et al., Reference Krumreich, Borges, Mendonça, Jansen-Alves and Zambiazi2018). This accession has great potential for breeding higher carotenoids content in avocados. With respect to pulp oil content, accessions namely PA-044, PA-043, PA-046, PA-045 and PA-052 had higher oil content than the most popular varieties such as Hass and Fuerte (Rodriguez-Carpena et al., Reference Rodriguez-Carpena, Morcuende, Andrade, Kylli and Estevez2011; USDA, 2011). These accessions have potential for breeding higher pulp oil content in avocados. These accessions with high oil content were collected from higher altitudes, which is consistent with the studies of Carvalho et al. (Reference Carvalho, Bernal, Velasquez and V.j.r2015). The accessions rich in antioxidants and total phenolics play an important role in breeding for fruit quality traits (Zhao et al., Reference Zhao, Sun, Liu, Zhang, Cao, Zheng, Zhang, Zhao, Ai, He and Han2024). The antioxidant activity and total phenols showed wide variations among the studied accessions (Table 1& 4). Similar results were observed by Wang et al. (Reference Wang, Zheng, Khuong and Lovatt2012) and Wang et al. (Reference Wang, Bostic and Gu2010) with respect to antioxidant activity and total phenols. Dry matter content is another key trait for selection of accessions because of its positive correlation with oil content of the pulp (Ozdemir and Topuz, Reference Ozdemir and Topuz2004). In this study, the dry matter content ranged from 13.04 (PA-074) to 36.93% (PA-044). The range observed for the drymatter content in this study was higher compared to reports of Espinosa‐Alonso et al. (Reference Espinosa‐Alonso, Paredes‐Lopez, Valdez‐Morales and Oomah2017) and Bayram et al. (Reference Bayram, Arslan, Turgutoglu and Erkan2012). The variation in the Indian avocado population is likely due to the many introductions and seed propagation (Muralidhara et al., Reference Muralidhara, Sakthivel, Reddy, Karunakaran, Venkatravanappa, Savadi, Divya, Naresh, Shivashankara, Venugopalan and Honnabyraiah2024).
The superior accessions for important morphological and biochemical traits
The cluster analysis of accessions based on 17 morphological and 8 biochemical characteristics grouped the accessions into 9 sub clusters. The clustering of accessions clearly showed that, there is no relationship between the grouping of genotypes and their geographic locations. Similar diversity was observed through molecular characterization of 83 Indian avocado accessions (Muralidhara et al., Reference Muralidhara, Sakthivel, Reddy, Karunakaran, Venkatravanappa, Savadi, Divya, Naresh, Shivashankara, Venugopalan and Honnabyraiah2024). The similar findings were also reported by Liu et al. (Reference Liu, Ge, Zhan, Lin, Zang, Li, Yang and Ma2020) while characterizing Chinese accessions. Notably, the grouping of accessions was found to correlate with the different traits such as fruit weight, oil content and TSS content. For instance, cluster-I had accessions with large fruit size and high pulp content, and cluster-VI consisted of majority accessions with high TSS. The formation of more groups indicates the presence of rich diversity in collected accessions and selection of superior genotypes from different groups can be utilized in crop improvement programmes.
The results of the PCA analysis revealed the existence of significant variations in the studied accessions and the first three components showed 54.79 per cent of the total variation. Fruit weight, pulp weight and seed weight traits accounted for the majority of the total variance. Similarly, Schnell et al. (Reference Schnell, Brown, Olano, Power, Krol, Kuhn and Motamayor2003), Rubinstein et al. (Reference Rubinstein, Eshed, Rozen, Zviran, Kuhn, Irihimovitch, Sherman and Ophir2019) and Amado et al. (Reference Amado, Helmann, Detoni, Carvalho, Aguiar, Martin, Tiuman and Cottica2019) reported genetic variations in avocado genotypes for morphological, biochemical and molecular traits by employing PCA analysis. The variations and cluster information generated in this study could be used for utilizing the studied germplasm for improvement of different characteristics in avocados. Further, the accessions from different genetic groups could be utilized in hybridization programmes for obtaining wide variations in the progeny (Manzur et al., Reference Manzur, Fita, Prohens and Rodriguez-Burruezo2015).
Conclusions
The study provided comprehensive morpho-biochemical analysis of Indian avocados. Wide variations were observed for the important morpho-biochemical traits such as fruit size, high pulp recovery, thick peel, high carotenoids and high oil content in the studied avocado accessions. The clustering and PCA analyses confirmed the existence of wide variability among the accessions. In this study, accessions with superior traits such as fruit size (PA-102, PA-012), high pulp recovery (PA-036, PA-082,), thick peel (PA-084, PA-043, PA-011, PA-008), high carotenoids (PA-026, PA-096) and high oil content (PA-044, PA-043, PA-046, PA-045) were identified, which have potential utility in the breeding programmes of avocados. The results of this study would allow strategies to be devised for the classification and conservation of the germplasm in the gene bank and development of varieties with superior pomological traits through future breeding programmes.
Supplementary material
The supplementary material for this article can be found at https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479262125000140.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Director ICAR-IIHR for providing facilities for conducting research.
Author contribution
BMM: Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology and Original Draft ST: Supervision, Validation, KG: Supervision, Validation SKS: Resources, Supervision, Validation VKR: Resources, Validation VR: Formal analysis SS: Original Draft, editing VV: Resources, data Curation KVS: investigation, Data Curation LDC: Supervision, Validation, editing HMK: Supervision, Validation.
Competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
