Vol. 12, Issue 12 (2023)

Author(s):
Pavan Devesh, Rajesh Singh, Kartikeya Srivastava, M Shankar and Pargat Singh

Abstract:
Forty-six maize inbred lines were evaluated for fourteen traits to study the genetic diversity. The experiment was conducted in randomized complete block design (RCBD) with two replications. All the 46 genotypes were grouped into 5 clusters. Cluster III was the largest cluster comprising of sixteen maize genotypes followed by cluster I (10), cluster V (9), cluster III (7) and cluster III (4). Cluster distance indicated by the average inter and intra cluster distance are the approximate measure of the cluster divergence. The maximum inter cluster distance was observed between cluster I and III (6.75) and minimum between cluster II and IV (4.89). The maximum value of inter-cluster distances indicated that the genotypes belonging to the cluster I is far diverged from those cluster III. Genotypes of cluster III show high intra cluster distance indicating high degree of divergence among the genotypes studied. It was observed that plant height contributed highest (30.53%) for divergence, followed zinc concentration (17.20%), hundred seed weight (11.98%), iron concentration (10.72%) while cob diameter contributed lowest (0.19%) for divergence. It can be inferred that crossing between these genotypes may result in good recombinants for successful breeding programme.