Genetic divergence study for growth characters among the accessions of Safed Musli

Abstract

The present investigation was carried out in College of Forestry, Navsari Agricultural University, Navsari, Gujarat to study the genetic divergence for growth traits among 10 accessions of safed musli (Chlorophytum borivilianum Sant. & Fernand) collected from different parts of India. The genetic divergence in safed musli was estimated based on the growth traits of accessions grown. Accordingly, a field experiment was performed using a randomized block design and three replications to compare divergences in different growth traits. Tocher's clustering method was performed using the Mahalanobis distance.D2 analysisgrouped the 10 accessions into 3 clusters. In view of genetic divergence, tuber yield contributedthe highest divergence over other growth attributes. Cluster II containedmaximum number of accessions. Maximum inter cluster distancewas found between Cluster -II and Cluster-III. Therefore,accession C1 and C7, C8, C6, C5, C2 are to be selected for furtherbreeding purpose as these accession are with maximum geneticdivergence. So, these accessions may be selected for improvementprogramme.