Studies on genetic divergence in gladiolus genotypes, Gladiolus hybridus Hort

Genetic diversity is the first and important parameter in crop improvement programme. In the present investigation thirty gladiolus genotypes were assessed to know the nature and magnitude of genetic divergence using Mahalanobis D² statistics. The population was grouped into eight clusters. The corm weight, corm diameter, rachis length, days to for sprouting, spike girth, leaf width, days taken for full spike emergence, inter-floret length, floret diameter and vase life components were found main parameters contributing towards divergence and played dominant role in the improvement of gladiolus quality. Cluster-I retained maximum number of treatments which showed genetic similarities; cluster-II and cluster-IV each with 7 and 6 genotypes, cluster-III with 3 genotype and cluster-VI with 2 genotypes. Rest of the clusters were of solitary type which had considerable differences in their parents. Therefore selection for divergent parents based on these traits is recommended for getting desirable hybrids or segregates in gladiolus.