Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, IASc. BHU, Varanasi-221005
Ten inbreds were evaluated to obtain the information on genetic divergence of the inbreds for initial stage water deficit response, planted in the Research Farm of Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, BHU, Varanasi during the two Rabi seasons of 2015 and 2016. The genetic divergence was studied thrugh multi-variate analysis using D2 statistics for the ten diverse characters. Analysis of variance revealed significant differences among the genotypes for all the traits. D2 revealed that the genotypes exhibited considerable diversity and and were grouped into two major clusters. Among the two cluster-1 was found with maximum intra cluster difference and more entries. Maximum genetic divergence was obtained for the trait anthesis -silking interval. Based on Tocher’s clustering pattern of the genotypes, three inbreds were suggested to include in the further studies of yield attributing traits and developing the hybrid combinations w.r.t. drought tolerance.
Key words: ANOVA, D2 analysis, divergence, inbreds, Tocher’s clustering