GENETIC DIVERGENCE ANALYSIS OF MORPHOLOGICAL TRAITS IN OAT (AVENA SATIVA L.)
ATAR SINGH*, PRAKRITI TOMAR, AKASH SINGH, CHIRANJEEV AND NIKHIL
Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel University of Agriculture and Technology,
Meerut-250110 (U.P.), India
*(e-mail : atars49@gmail.com)
(Received : 19 October 2019; Accepted : 28 December 2019)
SUMMARY
A total of twenty five genotypes were characterized according to twenty morphological and seed traits. The genotypes differed significantly for most of the traits and relatively wide range of mean for all traits indicated the presence of variation among the tested genotypes. High phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variation, high heritability coupled with genetic advance as percent of mean based on pooled analysis revealed for seedling dry weight per plant and seed vigour index. Seed yield per plant was showed positive and significant correlation with harvest index, biological yield per plant, dry weight per plant, number of reproductive tillers per plant leaf width, test weight, plant height and number of seeds per main spike, while negative significant with days to flowering and days to maturity at both phenotypic and genotypic levels. High positive direct contribution of biological yield per plant followed by number of leaves per plant, seed germination, spike length, leaf length, harvest index, biomass yield per plant, days to flowering seedling dry weight per plant and number of reproductive tillers per plant simple selection could be effective for these traits. The Cluster with higher number of lines means had low genetic diversity and they are more closely related. Highest intra cluster distance was observed for cluster I and maximum inter cluster distance was observed between cluster I and III indicates that the genotypes included in these clusters are having broad spectrum of genetic diversity and could very well be used in hybridization programme of oat for improving seed yield. Whereas the minimum average inter cluster D2 value was recorded between cluster III and II. The lowest inter cluster distances indicate that the genotype of these clusters had close relationship and hence, may not be emphasized upon to be used in hybridization programme. The genotypes viz; JHO 03-91, SKO 105, CSAOFSC 14-6, SKO 101, JHO 2007-1, NDO 612 and JHO 851 and cluster III characterized by days to maturity, leaf width, number of nodes per plant number of leaves per plant, biological yield per plant, dry weight per plant and spike length with genotypes namely; CSAOFSC 11-5, CSAOFSC 11-1, CSAOFSC 12-1, UPO 212, CSAOSC 12-1 and OS 403 were expected to exhibited high heterotic performance and are also likely to produce new recombinants with desired characters to get desirable segregates with higher seed yield for developing superior variety of oat.
Key words:Oats, correlation, path analysis, genetic divergence, forage yield