Genetic Diversity Analysis for Grain Yield and Its Attributes Among Diverse Genotypes of Rice (Oryza sativa L.)

Morphological and grain yield related traits of one hundred and eighty nine rice genotypes were studied to assess the existence of genetic divergence by using Non-hierarchical Euclidean cluster analysis. The 189 diverse genotypes were grouped into 12 distinct non-overlapping clusters. Among the twelve clusters, cluster I was largest with 39 genotypes, followed by cluster IX (33), cluster IV (30) and cluster XII with 28 entries. Cluster IX exhibited very high inter-cluster distances from cluster VIII, VII and VI, while IV showed very high intra-cluster diversity. From cluster mean value of different characters toward genetic divergence, genotypes incluster IX, VIII, X and II deserve consideration for their direct use as parents in hybridization programs to develop highyielding rice varieties. Thus, crossing among these pairs of cluster is recommended for obtaining high transgressive segregants in segregating generation.