Vol. 11, Issue 12 (2022)

Author(s):
MS Bhailume, DS Thakare and VP Gulwane

Abstract:
Genetic divergence using D² analysis was carried out to assess the 60 diverse genotypes of cowpea. All the 60 genotypes were grouped into nine clusters. The analysis of variances has shown that there was a significant variation among the genotypes in all traits. Out of the nine clusters, Cluster II was a largest cluster had maximum 21 genotypes, followed by cluster I (14 genotypes), cluster III (11 genotypes), cluster IV (7 genotypes), cluster VII (3 genotypes) and all other clusters viz., V, VI, VIII, IX had only single genotype. The calculated D² values ranged from 1.18 to 173.78. The highest genetic distance was observed between cluster VI-IX (10.65), while lowest genetic distance between cluster V-VI (3.77). The maximum value between PCP-13-12 and GTC-22 were observed whereas, lowest value between the pairs of genotypes VWB-5 and VWB-3-1.Under this investigation, the maximum contribution towards genetic divergence is by plant height (39.89%) contributed more to genetic diversity, it was followed by harvest index (23.33%), 100 seed weight (17.80%) and seed yield per plant (7.91%).