Genetic divergence analysis in durum wheat (triticum durum l. desf.)

Genetic divergence study on duram wheat Triticum durum L. Desf. consisted 150 genotypes of diverse sources. The experiment was conducted at Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Regional Wheat Research Station, Indore in Rabi 2006-07 in Randomized Complete Block design replicated twice. Standard package and practices was given to raise healthy crop. Results of analysis revealed their association into sixteen clusters. Approximate configurations of the clusters based on the D2 values. According to Mahalanobis' D2 statistic it can be concluded that grain yield per plant, days to maturity, plant height, day to flowering hectolitre weight and 1000-grain weight contributed the most towards genetic diversity. Genotypes ID-1124 and GW-1 can be used as donors for more number of grains per spike while, few genotypes from cluster VIII and X can be utilized to improve the grain yield as a whole. The clustering pattern-indicated no parallelism between the geographical distribution and genetic diversity. Genotypes selected from the two major divergent groups i.e. MACS 3125, HI-8591, HI-8651, HI-8620, WHD937, IWP-5004-1,HI-8381,GW-1139,GW-1225,HI-8639 (from group-I) and IWP -5013,D-061,D-062,IWP-5007,P-6046 (from group –II), may be used as parents for hybridization after determining their combining abilities so as to obtained considerably batter and promising segregats and recombinants.