Genetic diversity studies in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) germplasm

Abstract

The present investigation consists of 51 genotypes of chickpea including one check, these genotypes were obtained from ICAR – Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Kanpur, U.P. The experiment was conducted during Rabi, 2018-19 at Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences, Prayagraj in RBD having three replications. The data was recorded on 15 characters to study genetic divergence using Mahalanobis D2 Statistics. Based on D2 values, 51 genotypes were grouped into eight clusters. The cluster V consisted of maximum 18 genotypes, followed by Cluster VIII and cluster II, which had 11 and 9 genotypes, respectively. Intra cluster values varied from 9.93 to 44.84. The maximum intra cluster distance was found in cluster II (44.84) followed by cluster IV (42.49), V (42.44), cluster VIII (39.26) and cluster VII (37.15). Inter cluster values varied from 31.09 to 75.10. However, maximum inter cluster distance was noticed between cluster II and cluster VII (75.10), followed by cluster V and cluster VII (70.13), cluster VI and cluster VII (68.83), cluster III and cluster VII (63.11) and cluster II and cluster IV (62.35). whereas, seed yield of the plant (44.86%) followed by protein content (22.90%), 100 seed weight (7.60%), number of seeds per plant (7.13%) and number of secondary branches per plant (6.66%) contributed maximum towards diversity. Divergence analysis revealed that highest inter cluster distance (75.10) was found between clusters II and VII indicates that there is ample scope for selection of better parents. Based on inter cluster distances and Per se performance IPC 57-29, Phule G-5, GNG 1581 and IPC 05-66 were identified for inclusion in hybridization programme for realizing desirable transgressive segregates.