Vol. 12, Issue 6 (2023)

Author(s):
Kailas Bhoite, Jaypal Chaure and Suresh Pardeshi

Abstract:
An experiment was carried out on local collected Niger germplasm lines at the Zonal Agriculture Research Station, Igatpuri during Kharif 2022. Analysis of variance indicate that the mean sum of square due to genotypes were highly significant for all the characters. High genotypic coefficient of variation and phenotypic coefficient variation were observed for all the characters under study. High heritability accompanied with high genetic advance a percent were observed for seed yield per plot, number of capitula per plant and number seeds per capitula indicated that these characters are governed by additive gene effects. Twenty five germplasms were grouped into five clusters. Cluster I was biggest and consisted of 12 genotypes followed by cluster II and cluster III with 7 and 4 genotypes, respectively. The cluster IV and V were solitary. Intra cluster distance was ranged from zero (cluster IV and V) to 6.04 (cluster III). The highest intra cluster distance was observed in cluster III followed by cluster II and cluster I. From the inter cluster D² values of the five clusters, it can be seen that the highest divergence occurred between cluster I and III followed by cluster III and IV, cluster I and V suggesting that the crosses involving varieties from these clusters would give wider and desirable recombination.