Assessment of genetic divergence in seed yield and contributing traits of Indian mustard

Thirty-one newly developed genotypes of Brassica juncea were evaluated to study the genetic divergence through Mahalanobis D² statistics in respect of 11 different morphological characters. As per D² and cluster analysis, the genotypes were grouped into sixteen different clusters. Cluster X was the largest comprising four genotypes followed by Cluster VII and VIII which have three genotypes, each while Cluster XII, XIII, XIV, XV and XVI has single genotype The highest inter cluster distance was observed between cluster IX and XVI (22.846) and that of the lowest between cluster I and II (6.779). Highest intra-cluster distance was observed in cluster VII (11.184). Seeds per siliqua, Siliqua length, length of main shoot and, 1000-seed weight contributed maximum towards the divergence (48.39, 15.70, 12.90 and 7.10%, respectively). Considering cluster mean in respect of these four characters, the importance of cluster XIV for seeds per siliqua, cluster IX for siliqua length and length of main shoot and that of cluster XII for 1000-seed weight become obvious. The genotypes grouped in these clusters can be used in breeding programme in order to get a wide spectrum of variability and transgressive segregants.