1Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, A.D. Agricultural College & Research Institute, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Trichirappalli-620 009
2Department of Plant Molecular Biology and Bioinformatics, Centre for Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore-641 003
*Email: ponsivakumar@gmail.com
Online published on 3 December, 2016.
The nature and magnitude of genetic divergence were estimated in 17 rice land races and three improved rice varieties using Mahalanobis D2 statistics by considering ten quantitative characters. Mahalanobis D2 analysis revealed considerable amount of diversity in the material. The genotypes were grouped into nine clusters. Cluster III constituted maximum number of genotypes (5 each) followed by cluster I, II, IV, V, VI, VII and VIII (each 2 genotypes), cluster IX and X (each 1 genotype). The highest intra-cluster distance was recorded for cluster VII (38.941) followed by cluster IV (31.694). The minimum intra cluster distance was documented for cluster V (10.34) followed by cluster I (10.069). The maximum inter cluster distance was observed for cluster VII and cluster VIII (68.936) followed by cluster VI and cluster X (66.947) and cluster VIII and cluster X (62.649), suggesting that the genotypes constituted in these clusters may be used as parents for future hybridization programme.
Genetic diversity, rice genotypes, D2 analysis, biometrical traits, cluster
