Plants collected from the populations of Taquaritinga and Jales
presented the smallest and highest genetic diversities, respectively, measured by using both Nei's genetic
variability index (h ¼ 0.2242 and 0.2973) and Shannon's index (I ¼ 0.3359 and 0.4319). The results
obtained indicated that 73.1% of genetic variability corresponds to intrapopulational variation and 26.8%
to variation among populations. The clustering dendrogram using Jacquard showed four clusters. Three
clusters with low genetic diversity grouped most of individuals collected in distinct regions (63.3% JU,
47.0% JA and 82.5% TA) and the fourth with the higher genetic diversity was composed with basically
individuals collected in CA and AS, but it also had samples collected in JU, JA and TA, where it is possible
to select individuals to be included in breeding programs.