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Department of Genetics & Plant Breeding, S.V. Agricultural College, ANGRAU, Tirupati – 517 502.
A set of thirty two groundnut genotypes were assessed for genetic diversity during kharif season of 2022 using Mahalanobis D2 statistics with regards to pod yield, yield attributing characters and quality traits. Among the characters studied, the shelling percent contributed maximum towards the total divergence. The groundnut genotypes were grouped into 8 clusters using Tocher’s method of clustering. Among these 8 clusters, cluster I had maximum number of 11 genotypes followed by cluster IV with 9 genotypes, cluster II with 6 genotypes, cluster VIII with 2 genotypes and the remaining clusters (III, V, VI and VII) were solitary cluster having only one genotype. Cluster IV had the maximum intra cluster distance followed by cluster VIII. The maximum inter- cluster distance was observed between cluster VII and VIII followed by cluster IV and cluster VII. In order to get better segregants for yield and yield parameters, taking into consideration the cluster distances and cluster means in the current experiment, the crossing between the genotypes from clusters II and VII is rewarding.
KEYWORDS: Cluster means, genetic diversity, groundnut, Mahalanobis D2 statistic.