Studies on genetic divergence in gladiolus

Genetic diversity is the first and important parameter in crop improvement programme. In the present investigation, fifty gladiolus genotypes were assessed to know the nature and magnitude of genetic divergence using Mahalanobis D² statistics. The population was grouped into six clusters. The characters namely, plant height, leaf length, leaf diameter, spike length, number of florets, floret-length, floret diameter, number of corms/plant, corm diameter, weight of corm, number of cormels and cormel weight components were found main parameters contributing towards divergence and played dominant role in the improvement of gladiolus yield. Cluster-I retained maximum number of treatments which showed genetic similarities. Remaining clusters retained 4 or 3 varieties 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.