Divergence Studies for Early Seedling Vigour Related Traits, Yield and Yield Components in Rice (Oryza sativa L.)

The present study was carried out in the Autumn 2020-21 using a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. Forty-two different genotypes of rice were evaluated in this investigation. These genotypes were assessed based on 21 quantitative traits, which includes yield and yield related traits and early seedling vigour related traits. The Mahalanobis D2 statistic was used for characterizing the genotypes. Based on the D2 analysis, the 42 rice genotypes were grouped into seven clusters. Among these clusters, cluster I was the largest, consisting of 22 genotypes. Cluster III exhibited the highest intracluster distance (22.04), while the maximum inter-cluster distance was observed between clusters II and III (49.06), followed by clusters III and VII (45.84). These results highlight the significance of the genotypes present in these clusters for harnessing heterosis and exploiting the desirable traits associated with them.