GENETIC DIVERGENCE STUDIES FOR AGRO-MORPHOLOGICAL, INSECT PEST AND QUALITY PARAMETERS IN MINI CORE COLLECTION OF FORAGE SORGHUM

GENETIC DIVERGENCE STUDIES FOR AGRO-MORPHOLOGICAL, INSECT PEST AND QUALITY PARAMETERS IN MINI CORE COLLECTION OF FORAGE SORGHUM
VIJAYLAXMI, S. K. PAHUJA*, PUMMY KUMARI AND U. N. JOSHI
Forage Section, Dept. of Genetics and Plant Breeding,
CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, Haryana-125004, India
*(e-mail : pahujask@gmail.com)
(Received : 10 January 2019; Accepted : 25 March 2019)

SUMMARY

Sorghum is the important cereal crop with multiple uses like food, feed, fodder, fuel and medicines etc. Hence exploration of existing variability in sorghum and its proper utilization for trait specific breeding is essential for sorghum improvement. In the present investigation, sixty one mini core of sorghum were screened for genetic diversity for 30 traits including quantitative and qualitative, out of which except leaf breadth all traits were contributing to variability were selected for genetic diversity analysis. By using hierarchical cluster analysis, the 40 accessions were grouped under 6 clusters. Cluster I contained maximum number of accessions and cluster VI contained the minimum. The maximum inter-cluster distance was observed between cluster VI and cluster IV. Cluster III had the highest mean value for hundred-seed weight and yield. Thus the selection of parents must be based on the wider inter-cluster distance and superior mean performance for yield and yield attributing traits. Therefore present investigation was planned to exploit the existence of a wide genetic diversity present in quantitative and qualitative traits in sorghum accessions which can be further used for sorghum genetic improvement.

Key words: Minicore, cluster, diversity and sorghum

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