Genetic Divergence in Lentil (Lens culnaris Medik)

Fifty genotypes of lentil (Lens culnaris Medik) were evaluated for obtaining information regarding genetic divergence through Mahalanobsis D² statistics analysis. The analysis of variance revealed significant differences among the genotypes for all the traits. All the 50 genotypes were grouped into 7 nonoverlapping clusters. The cluster IV comprised of maximum number of genotypes (13), while cluster III included only 3 genotypes. The intra-cluster distance ranged from a maximum of 2.301 for cluster II to a minimum of 1.543 for cluster VII, while the inter-cluster distances varied from 5.234 (maximum) between cluster IV and I to 2.654 (minimum) between cluster II and I. Highly divergent and better performing genotypes L 4598, L 414, DPL 59, PL 81–18 and L 830 were identified on the basis of their high cluster mean values and those may be used in hybridization programmes for the development of high yielding varieties of lentil.