Genetic divergence in makhana (Euryale ferox Salisb.)

Abstract

Makhana (Euryale ferox Salisb.) is an important aquatic cash crop of eastern India. During 2009-10 and 2010-11, an attempt was made to study genetic divergence among 36 makhana genotypes using Mahalanobis D2-statistic at ICAR-RCER, Research Centre for Makhana, Darbhanga (Bihar). Experiments were conducted in field condition in Randomized Block Design with three replications. Data were recorded on 14 morpho-physiological traits, viz., days to germination, days to initiation of flowering, days to 50% flowering, days to 100% flowering, days to initiation of fruit bursting, leaf diameter (cm), fruit diameter (cm), fruits per plant, seeds per fruit, seeds per plant, seed yield per fruit (g), seed yield per plant (g), 100-seed weight (g) and seed diameter (cm). On the basis of D2 values, these genotypes were grouped into seven clusters. The clustering pattern indicated that cluster I and cluster II were the largest ones accommodating ten genotypes each. While clusters IV and VI were observed the smallest one with single genotype. The highest inter-cluster D2 values was observed between cluster III and VII (423.20) followed by cluster III and IV (379.69), indicating wider genetic diversity among the groups. The highest intra-cluster D2 values were observed for the cluster VII (75.90) and the lowest in cluster IV and VII (0.00). Among 14 traits studied, 100-seed weight was observed to have highest contribution (57.30%) towards genetic divergence followed by seeds/ fruit (18.25%) and fruit diameter (17.46%). The results suggested that genotypes BR-5 of cluster III and BR-1 of cluster VII could be the most suitable parents for development of high yielding varieties of makhana through hybridization.