Genetic divergence in groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.)

Abstract

Divergence analysis among seventy groundnut genotypes using Mahalanobis’s D2 statistic grouped into eleven clusters. The maximum inter-cluster distance (D) was observed between clusters IV and XI (D=239.0) followed by clusters VIII and IX (D=235.65) and clusters II and VIII (D=228.02) indicating that the genotypes of these groups may be mire divergent from each other. The genotypes in above clusters revealed substantial difference in the means for important yield contributing characters suggesting that the genotypes belonging to these clusters form ideal parents for improvement in groundnut.