Evaluation of genetic divergence in blackgram (<em>Vigna mungo </em>L.) genotypes by D<sup>2 </sup>statistic

Abstract

Thirty nine genotypes were evaluated in a randomized block design with two replications at ARS, Madhira during rabi 2016 for genetic divergence studies. Partitioning of total variance through principle component analysis showed that five principal components viz PC I, PC II, PC III, PC IV and PC V contributed about 95.16% of total variance for the material studied. The blackgram genotypes were grouped into six distinct clusters of which cluster 1 is the largest with a maximum number (34) of genotypes. Percent contribution of the traits towards genetic divergence showed that 100 seed weight contributed the most (22.80%) followed by days to 50% flowering (21.32%), number of clusters per plant (21.18%), plant height (16.46%), seed yield per plant (8.50%), seed yield (kg/ha) (5.53%) and days to maturity (4.18%).