Genetic divergence in mid early rice genotypes

Abstract

Rice has a vast genetic resource in the world. To explore the genetic resources for its exploitation in the genetic improvement programme, the current study was done with mid early rice genotypes of Bihar. The research was performed at research farm of Bhola Paswan Shastri Agricultural College, Purnea (Bihar) with thirty- four mid early rice genotypes. The genetic diversity among the genotypes was analysed using Mahalanobis D2 statistics. The study showed that the intra and inter cluster average distances among six clusters were found variable. The highest intra-cluster distance was recorded for cluster-III (24.44) followed by cluster IV (19.55) and cluster I (17.05).The highest inter-cluster distance was observed between cluster III and V (118.78), followed by cluster I and III (103.90) and cluster V and VI (102.92) indicating wider genetic diversity among the genotypes between these groups. The highest contribution towards genetic divergence was exhibited by days to 50% flowering (37.08%) followed by fertile grains/panicle (27.63%) and 1000grain weight (12.12%).The other traits showed less or no contribution towards divergence.