Vol. 6 (1) : January-February 2015 issue
Green Farming Vol. 6 (1) : 44-46 ; January-February, 2015
Genetic divergence in sweet corn (Zea mays L. saccharata)
G. SESHU1*, M.V. BRAHMESWARA RAO2 and M.R. SUDARSHAN3
Dept. of Genetics & Plant Breeding, College of Agriculture, ANGR Agric. University, Hyderabad - 500 030 (Telangana)
Designation : 1Ph.D. Scholar *(seshugpb@gmail.com), 2Professor & Head (Retd), 3Principal Scientist
Subject : Crop Genetics and Plant Breeding
Paper No. : P-2047
Total Pages : 3
Received : 21 May 2014
Revised accepted : 20 November 2014
Get Access
Citation :
G. SESHU, M.V. BRAHMESWARA RAO and M.R. SUDARSHAN. 2015. Genetic divergence in sweet corn (Zea mays L. saccharata). Green Farming Vol. 6 (1) : 44-46 ; January-February, 2015
ABSTRACT
The genetic divergence among 63 genotypes of sweet corn were estimated by using Mahalanobis D2 statistic for eleven characters. The genotypes were grouped into eight clusters. Cluster III was the largest having 14 genotypes indicating genetic similarity among them, followed by cluster IV and V (12 genotypes each), cluster I and II (11 genotypes each) and cluster VI, VII and VIII (one genotypes each). The inter-cluster distances were larger than the intra-cluster distances suggesting wider genetic diversity among the genotypes of different groups. The highest inter-cluster distance (586.76) was observed between cluster VI and cluster VIII followed by cluster VI and VII (544.64), cluster V and VIII (523.41), cluster IV and VIII (463.22), cluster IV and VII (396.53), cluster V and VII (352.53), cluster III and VIII (315.22), cluster II and VII (242.25) and cluster I and VIII (216.142) suggesting more variability in genetic makeup of the genotypes included in these clusters. The highest intra cluster distance (103.51) was observed in cluster VIII and lowest in cluster III, IV and VI. The clusters, VI, VII and VIII contained only one genotype and hence, its intra-cluster distance was zero. The cluster VII had highest mean value for grain yield per plant followed by cluster VI, and cluster V. Based on the inter-cluster distances genotypes present in cluster I, II, III, IV, V, VI and VIII can be used as parents for hybridization programme to develop potential hybrids.
Key words :
D2 statistics, Genetic diversity, Inter-cluster distance, Maize, Sweet corn.