Genetic Diversity Analysis in Soybean with Reference to Pod Shattering

The genetic divergence analysis using Mahalanobis D² statistics was carried out in 196 soybean germplasm lines based on the 20 quantitative characters. Estimation of contribution of various characters towards the genetic divergence revealed that individual pod weight was the single largest contributing characters followed by the pod shattering, which is the serious problem in soybean. The 196 germplasm lines were grouped in 11 clusters, of which cluster I accommodated more than 50% of the genotypes. On the contrary four solitary clusters were formed. The 12 shattering resistant genotypes which are identified in the present investigation are distributed in five different clusters indicating the diversity between them and can be utilised in future breeding programme.