The natural variability of germplasm samples is of ten very high and their crossing of fers a simple way to recover large number of new combinations. Fifty-six exotic entries of different geographic origin varying in their yield potential were subjected to hierarchical cluster analysis to classify the variability. Twenty one agronomic traits viz., leaf yield, stomatal frequency, stomatal size, cuticle thickness, total leaf thickness, palisade to spongy parenchyma ratio, length of the root, dry weight of the root, root to shoot ratio by length and by weight, moisture retention capacity, moisture perce;ntage, number of primary branches, length of the shoot, inter-nodal distance, number of leaves per meter length of the shoot, leaf area, weight of 100 leaves, percentage of sprouting and rooting and total chlorophyll content were measured. Studies revealed that 56 mulberry entries fell in five clusters. Considerable genetic diversity was observed among the entries studied. On the basis of inter and intra-cluster distances, parents could be selected for breeding purpose.
Mulberry, agronomic traits, hierarchical clustering, genetic divergence
