Genetic divergence studies on upland rice grown in Nagaland, India

Abstract

Genetic divergence was studied in a set of seventy four genotypes of upland rice by using Mahalanobis D2 statistics for yield and its contributing characters. All the characters under study showed highly significant differences among genotypes. The genotypes under study were grouped into 15 clusters. The distribution pattern indicated that maximum number of genotypes (35) were found in cluster I, followed by cluster II with 12 genotypes, whereas, minimum number of genotype (1) had cluster XV. The inter-cluster distance was greater than intra-cluster distance indicating wide genetic divergence among genotypes. The highest intra-cluster distance was revealed in cluster XIV followed by cluster XIII and cluster XI. The maximum inter-cluster distance was observed between Cluster XIV and XV, followed by Cluster V and XV. The highest cluster mean was observed for yield/plant in cluster VII; however, contributing characters viz., panicle length, panicle weight, filled grains and 100 seed weight were found in cluster XIV. Seed yield/plant was found major contributing character towards the total genetic divergence which may be utilized in selecting genetically diverse parents, especially for exploitation of heterosis.