Genetic divergence analysis in groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.)

Abstract

Genetic diversity among 31 genotypes of groundnut were estimated using Mahalanobis D² statistic for five agromorphological characters. The analysis of variance revealed significant differences among the genotypes for all characters. Based on Tocher's method, 31 genotypes were grouped into seven clusters, where cluster I was the largest containing 11 genotypes followed by cluster II and III with 7 genotypes each. The inter-cluster distance was maximum between cluster I and cluster VI followed by cluster I and cluster V, cluster III and VI and cluster I and IV. Considering the cluster distances and cluster means the genotypes from cluster I, III, V and VI could be selected for hybridization programme.