European Journal of Biotechnology and Bioscience

Authors
Bineeta Devi

Abstract
The presentrninvestigation was conducted with 64 exotic rice germplasm to investigate thernnature and magnitude of genetic divergence during Kharif 2011. Thernanalysis of variance showed significant differences for all the charactersrnstudied among the genotypes. Based on the analysis, the genotypes were groupedrninto 9 clusters. Maximum number of 27, 17, 10 and 5 genotypes were groupedrnunder cluster III, I, II and IV respectively, while clusters V, VI, VII, VIII,rnand IX had only one genotypes each. Maximum inter cluster distance was observedrnbetween cluster IV and IX (2091.48) followed by cluster VII and IX (1893.05)rnindicates wider the genetic diversity between genotypes. Cluster VI showedrnhighest mean for seed yield per plant (25.67 g) followed by cluster IX, clusterrnVII and cluster III. The maximum inter cluster distance exhibited by cluster IVrn– IX and cluster IV also identified for selecting parents for incorporating therntwo traits viz., short plant structure and harvest index whereas clusterrnIX also identified for selecting parents for incorporating the three traits viz.,rnearly number of panicles per plant, flag leaf length and seed yield per plant.rnThe genotypes in the above cluster may be involved in a multiple crossingrnprogramme to recover transgressive segregants with high genetic yieldrnpotential. Among the traits studied, number of spikelets per panicle hadrnmaximum contribution towards the genetic divergence followed by plant height,rnpanicle length and harvest index whereas number of panicle per hill and paniclernlength had no contribution towards the genetic divergence.