Elucidating Genetic Diversity in the Advanced Chickpea Breeding Lines for Sustainable Crop Improvement

Abstract

Genetic diversity constitutes the cornerstone for the success of any efficient crop improvement program. Hence, the current study has been undertaken at the Seed Breeding Farm, Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, College of Agriculture, JNKVV, Jabalpur, M.P. during the Rabi season of 2021-22. Utilizing Mahalanobis D 2 statistics, analysis for genetic diversity classified forty advanced chickpea breeding lines into nine clusters with Cluster I having the highest 16 genotypes, followed by Cluster II (6 genotypes), Cluster III (4 genotypes) and Cluster IV (4 genotypes). The study revealed varying intra-cluster distances, with the maximum observed in Cluster VII (D 2 = 107.20) followed by Cluster IV (D 2 = 102.23) and Cluster III (D 2 =99.61). However, the highest inter cluster distance was identified between Cluster VIII and Cluster II (D 2 =517.65) succeeded by Cluster VIII and Cluster V (D 2 = 503.29), Cluster VIII and Cluster IX (D 2 =452.07). Maximum genetic divergence was contributed by traits including biological yield per plant (23.1%), total number of pods per plant (22.8%) and hundred seed weight (19.8%). Based on inter cluster distances, cluster means andper se performance, six superior genotypes, namely JG 2020-1614, PG 205, ICCV 211209 and JG 2020-634958, were identified as potential parents for future chickpea hybridization programs.