Assessment of Genetic Diversity of Bunch Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) Genotypes Collected from Various Parts of India

Abstract

The present study was carried out to assess genetic diversity among 58 genotypes of bunch groundnut using D² statistics during kharif - 2018 in randomized block design with three replications at the instructional farm, Department of Agronomy, College of Agriculture, Junagadh Agricultural University, Junagadh for thirteen agro-morphological characters viz., days to flowering, days to maturity, plant height, number of primary branches per plant, number of mature pods per plant, pod yield per plant, 100-pod weight, kernel yield per plant, 100-kernel weight, sound mature kernel, biological yield per plant, harvest index and oil content. The 58 groundnut genotypes were grouped under 11 clusters. Among 11 clusters, cluster IV was the largest comprising 18 genotypes, followed by cluster I, comprising 17, Cluster II has 12, cluster III has 4 and cluster V to XI were solitary. The D² values for inter-cluster distances, showed maximum between cluster VI and X (19.71), followed by VI and VII (18.77), V and X (18.68), Ill and V (18.65), V and VII (18.62), II and V (17.86), V and VIII (D = 17.78), III and X (D = 17.43) and VI and VIII (D = 17.20). The clusters were ranked based on the overall score across all thirteen characters. Accordingly, cluster III was the best for days to maturity, number of mature pods per plant (DH-24 and ICGV-0642), pod yield per plant (DH-221 and DH-201), kernel yield per plant and sound mature kernel (DH-55 and AH-34-90). Cluster VIII, X and XI were best for oil content (ICGV-03109 and AK-159), harvest index and biological yield per plant, respectively. Each character had their own contribution toward genetic divergence where, 100 kernel weight and sound mature kernel (%) has a maximum contribution of 23.71 % and 23.23%, respectively.