Investigating Phenotypic Diversity in a Germplasm Collection of Scarlet Eggplant under Mediterranean Conditions

This study aimed to determine phenotypic diversity in the germplasm collection of Solanum aethiopicum, also known as scarlet eggplant, under Mediterranean conditions. Two different experiments were established in which morphological and valuable agronomic traits were employed to measure diversity among 57 and 55 accessions, respectively. The experiments were carried out in a greenhouse and open field, and descriptors designated by the European Cooperative Program for Plant Genetic Resources (ECPGR) and the International Board for Plant Genetic Resources (IBPGR) were used to measure the plants and fruits. The results from descriptive statistics on quantitative traits data of plants and fruits show a great variation among accessions of Solanum aethiopicum. Multiple correlation analysis in the two distinct experiments shows that the highly correlated variables/descriptors represented fruit quantitative traits. Finally, results from principal component analysis (PCA) confirm that the overall differences observed in the germplasm collection of Solanum aethiopicum were mainly due to fruit quantitative traits, which are decisive for phenotypic characterization of this eggplant.