Estimating Genetic Diversity in Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) Lines: Cluster Analysis and Trait Impact

The present investigation was carried out in rabi 2023-24, with the objectives to study about genetic diversity in sixty elite lines of chickpea. The observations recorded for eleven morphological traits were subjected to estimation of genetic diversity using the Mahalanobis D2 statistics and the clustering of genotypes was performed using Tocher’s method. The results of analysis revealed that sixty genotypes were grouped into ten different clusters. Having 27 genotypes in total, cluster I was the largest, followed by cluster II with 7 and cluster III having 6 genotypes. The cluster X was solitary. Highest inter-cluster distance was obtained between cluster VIII and X (295.30) while highest intra-cluster distance was obtained for cluster IX (103.60). Lowest inter-cluster distance was obtained between cluster II and X (74.17) while lowest intra-cluster distance was obtained for cluster X (0). The characters which majority contributed towards the diversity in these genotypes was seed yield per plant (16.7%) followed by days to maturity (16%), biological yield (12.9%), days to 50% flowering (11.4%) and Number of primary branches (10.1%).