P. SUSMITHA*, A. PRASANNA RAJESH, M. REDDI SEKHAR AND SK. NAFEEZ UMAR

Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, S.V. Agricultural College, ANGRAU, Tirupati-517 502.

ABSTRACT

Mahalanobis D2 statistic was used to quantify the genetic diversity among 30 advanced breeding lines of groundnut for

fifteen traits. Based on Tocher’s method of clustering, the genotypes were grouped into five clusters. Among these five clusters, Cluster I had maximum number of 26 genotypes and remaining four clusters i.e., II, III, IV and V were solitary clusters with only one genotype each. The maximum inter- cluster distance was observed between cluster III and V followed by cluster II and V, cluster II and IV and cluster I and V.Considering the cluster distances and cluster means, cross combinations of clusters III X V and II X V is advised in order to obtain transgressive segregants for yield and yield parameters.Further, kernel yieldperplantwas observed to contribute maximum, followed by pod yieldper plant towards the total divergence of the genotypes studied in the present investigation.

KEYWORDS: Groundnut, D2 and genetic divergence.