Genetic divergence analysis for seed classes of four popular linseed, Linum usitatissimum L varieties of Chhattisgarh

The present investigations were undertaken at the Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, IGKV, Raipur during Rabi 2012–13 and 2013–14 with three seed classes (certified, breeder, mixture) of four popular linseed varieties (Deepika, Indira Alsi-32, RLC-92, R552) using Mahalanobis's D² statistic for ten quantitative characters. On the basis of D² values 3 seed classes of 4 linseed varieties were grouped into 3 clusters. Maximum varieties appeared in cluster I which possessed 9 seed groups in selected varieties while cluster III possessed 2 seed groups and cluster I possessed only 1 seed group. The maximum intra-cluster distance was obtained for cluster II (2.751) followed by cluster III (2.530) while the minimum intra-cluster D² value was shown by cluster III (1.050). The highest inter cluster D² value was found between cluster I and II (5.094) followed by cluster II and III (4.426) while lowest inter-cluster distance D² value was found between cluster I and III (2.530).