Genetic Diversity for yield and yield traits in wheat

Abstract

An investigation about the genetic diversity among 60 wheat genotypes using 15 yield and yield traits was studied at the Department of Agriculture, Mata Gijri College, Sri Fatehgarh Sahib, Punjab. Univariate and multivariate analysis of variance revealed the presence of significant among the genotypes. Based on D2 statistic, genotypes were grouped in 8 clusters following Tocher’s method. Cluster VI consisting of 15 genotypes and was the largest one followed by cluster III and maximum intra-cluster distance was found in cluster VIII followed by cluster VI and cluster VII. The most divergent clusters indicated highest inter-cluster distance which was found between clusters V and VIII followed by clusters II and VIII whereas lowest distance was between cluster III and IV. Grain yield per plant, number of grains per spike and 1000 grains weight contributed maximum towards total divergence. The contribution of various characters towards the expression of genetic divergence should be taken into account as a criterion for choosing parents for wheat crossing programme for the improvement in such characters.