Genetic diversity in traditiona aromatic rice accessions from Madhya Pradesh

Genetic diversity among 300 traditional aromatic rice accessions was worked out using non-hierarchical Euclidean cluster analysis. Based on genetic distance, these accessions were grouped into 16 different clusters, of which cluster II with 61 genotypes was the largest. The maximum intra-cluster distance was observed in cluster XII (0 = 1.911) followed by cluster XI (0 = 1.676) and cluster XV (0 = 1.610). Cluster XII and XIII were identified as genetically the most divergent. The inter-cluster distances indicated the greater divergence between cluster XII and XIII followed by clusters XI and XII, clusters V and XII, clusters IX and XII, clusters I and XII. The average genetic distance for all possible pairs of combinations ranged from 1.165 (II, VI) to 6.475 (XII, XIII). The highly diverse and superior germplasm accessions viz., H:41 I, S:715, 0:1017 and T:150 of cluster XII, A:367 II, W:48, B:801 and A:283 of cluster XIII, U:78 II, B:2354, C:340 and B:1209 of cluster XI, L:1238 II, B:1094 II, B:323 II, B:2604, B:1717 and B:2402 of cluster V, A:328 I, B:1693, B:323 I, B:2495 and C:751 of cluster IX, U:69 II, B:1322, B:1389, B:2461, B:2812 and V:9 of cluster I, were selected and appeared the most promising. These selected accessions may be utilized as donors in rice breeding programme for developing semidwarf, high yielding, early aromatic rices with good grain quality.