1Super Elite Sunflower Seed Production Scheme, ZARS, UAS, GKVK, Bangalore-560 065.
Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad-580 005 (Karnataka).
In order to assess the divergence among 169 cowpea genotypes, mahalanobis D2 statistics was applied. The analysis of variance revealed significant differences among the genotypes for all the traits. The 169 genotypes were grouped into 46 clusters, where clusters (6,8,9) were the largest, containing seven genotypes followed by the clusters 1,2,5,6 and 24 with six genotypes. The inter cluster distance was maximum between cluster 11 and 42 followed by cluster 34 and 42. Based on inter cluster distance and perse performance of genotypes, the entries viz., IC 259084, IC 259071, IC 257420, IC 257422, IC 202803, IC 97829, IC 198333, IC 97787, IC 202824 and IC 202781 were selected, which could be intercrossed to recover good recombinants and desirable segregants. The number of pods per plant contributed maximum divergence (14.75) which was followed by harvest index (14.74%) and days to flower termination (13.72%).
Cowpea, Genetic divergence, D2 statistics
