97 Okra [Abelmoschus esculentus (L.) Moench.], a member of the family Malvaceae, is an important vegetable crops grown extensively in tropical to subtropical climates. Genetic improvement mainly depends on the amount of genetic variability present in the population. In any crop, the germplasm serves as a valuable source of base population and offer major source of variability (Ramya and Senthil Kumar 2009). The total variability can be partitioned into heritable and non-heritable components with the help of genetic parameters like phenotypic and genotypic coefficients of variation, heritability and genetic advance. Heritability denotes the proportion of phenotypic variation repeatable and is due to genes and thus helps the breeders to select the elite variety for a character. However, heritability indicates only the effectiveness with which selection of a genotype can be based on phenotypic performance but it fails to indicate the expected genetic progress in one cycle of selection. Heritable variation can be effectively used with greater degree of accuracy when heritability is studied in conjunction with genetic advance (Johnson et al. 1955). The wide genetic diversity that exists in the available germplasm provides an ample scope for further improvement. Progress in breeding for economic characters often depends on the availability of large germplasm representing a diverse genetic origin. However, for a long term improvement programme, a large and diverse germplasm collection is an invaluable source of supply of parental strains for hybridization and subsequent development of improved varieties (Sanwal et al. 2012). The clustering of okra genotypes on the basis of genetic divergence (D 2 ) may provide the basis for selection of suitable parents for hybridization programme. The present study with forty genotypes of okra in randomized block design (RBD) with three replications was carried at the research farm of the Department of Vegetable Science, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, during spring summer season 2010-11. Phenotypic and genotypic co-efficients of variability, broad sense heritability (h 2 ) and expected genetic advance were estimated as suggested by Burton (1952), Hanson et al. (1956) and Johnson et al. (1955) respectively. The genetic divergence among genotypes was estimated by using D 2 statistics (Mahalanobis 1936). All the genotypes used were clustered into different groups by following Tocher’s method (Rao 1952). The average intra and inter cluster distances were calculated by the formulae given by Singh and Chaudhary (1985). The genetic parameters for different characters are presented in Table 1. In general, the values of phenotypic co-efficient of variations were higher magnitude than that the corresponding genotypic co-efficient of variations for all the characters showing that the environment had an important role in influencing the expression of these characters, but in present study almost similar trend and similar magnitude of PCV and GCV showed that environment did not much influence the estimates of genetic performance. Majority of the characters except first fruiting node, branches/plant and seeds/fruit recorded smaller differences between PCV and GCV values as they were less influenced by the environment indicating reliability of selection based on these traits. The estimates of PCV and GCV were moderate for plant height, internodal length, branches/plant, fruits/plant, seeds/fruit, test weight and fruit yield/plant indicating phenotypes reflected the genetic worth of the genotypes. Moderate PCV and low GCV values were observed for first fruiting node. Low PCV and GCV values were observed for stem diameter, days to first flowering, days to 50% flowering, days to first harvest, fruit length, fruit diameter and fruit weight indicating limited scope for improvement for these traits using these genotypes. The results were supported by Yadav et al. (2010). High heritability estimates were found for the characters, viz. plant height, stem diameter, internodal length, days to first flowering, days to 50% flowering, fruits/plant, days to first harvest, fruit length, fruit diameter, fruit weight, test Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences 83 (6): 685–8, June 2013/Short Communications Genetic variability and divergence in okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) A V V KOUNDINYA 1 , S K DHANKHAR 2 and A C YADAV 3 CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar 125 004 Received: 14 November 2012; Revised accepted: 12 March 2013 Key words: Genetic advance, Genetic divergence, Genetic variability, Heritability, Okra 1 M Sc (Ag) Student (e mail: koundi.hortico@gmail.com), 2 Scientist (e mail: dhankharsk@gmail.com), 3 Senior Scientist (e mail: acy275hsr1@gmail.com), Department of Vegetable Science