Progressive Agriculture

Present research was conducted to determine the extent of genetic variability among 48 genotypes of lentil along with correlation and path analysis of root and shoot traits for drought tolerance at seedling stage. The experiment was carried out following slant glass plate method in the laboratory of the Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya under pre-standardized-9.0 bar external water potential imposed by polyethylene glycol (MW-6000) following completely randomized design with three replications. All characters excluding root length and total length revealed high heritability coupled with high genetic advance expressed as percentage of mean under water stress condition. The forty-eight genotypes of lentil were distributed into seven clusters. Under water stress condition, genotypes of cluster V (L-4076, L1112–17) and VII (KLS-107) can be used as parents in hybridization programme. Genotypes belonging to cluster V (L-4076 and L1112–17) had the highest mean values for all the characters. Dendrogram was constructed using Euclidean distance and Unweight Pair Group Method using Arithmetic Averages (UPGMA). In case of PEG mediated drought stress, the genotypes L-4076, PLG-109 & DPL 62 were greatly separated from KLS-107, LP-112, L1112–20 of one sub-cluster and L-4581, L1112–10 & PL-099 of another.