Studies on genetic divergence in yardlong bean (Vigna ungiculata (L.) walp. ssp. sesquipedalis verdc.)

Abstract

Genetic divergence among 24 genotypes of yardlong bean (Vigna ungiculata (L.) walp. ssp. sesquipedalis verdc.) was investigated to select the parents for hybridization using Mahalanobis D2 statistics. Cluster analysis was used for grouping 24 yardlong bean genotypes. The genotypes fall into five clusters. Cluster II had the maximum (8) and cluster I had the minimum (3) number of genotypes. Cluster I (382.16) had highest intra-cluster distance and the lowest in cluster IV (140.69). The inter cluster D2 values of the five clusters revealed that highest inter cluster generalized distance (1986.11) was between cluster I and cluster IV, while the lowest (373.36) was between cluster III and cluster IV. The characters i.e., pod yield, ascorbic acid content, 100 seed weight, protein percentage, pod length, yield per hectare, TSS, vine length, yield per plot, number of pods per cluster and titrable acidity contributed maximum towards divergence among yardlong bean genotypes.