Morpho-Agronomic and Molecular Diversity Among Relatives of Eggplant

The eggplant is an important fruit and leaf vegetable in the world and in Africa there are no sociological restrictions in production and consumption. Eggplant is a reliable source of nutrients and income to the resource poor household in sub Sahara Africa. Considerable achievements in production and yield and improvement in post harvest quality and organoleptic characters, which have been introgressed into the genetic background of commercial varieties had occurred in Europe and Asia. While traits of economic importance and are yet to be characterized using morphological and molecular techniques in Africa. Knowledge of the relatives of the cultivated eggplants that could facilitate improvement in growth, yield and consumers preferences is inadequate. Consequently Africa can account for very few commercial varieties. This book describes information on relatedness among relatives of the eggplant based on morphological and agronomic markers and genetic relationship considering simple sequence repeat markers.