Genetic Divergence in common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.)

In the present study, genetic divergence was studied through non-hierarchical Euclidean cluster analysis. The results showed the presence of sufficient amount of genetic variability as all the 41 test genotypes and three checks were grouped into six different clusters. Estimates of intra-cluster distances ranged from 0–2.161. It was maximum in cluster V and minimum in cluster IV. The maximum inter-cluster value (8.094) was obtained between cluster I and IV. Minimum diversity was observed between cluster III and IV (2.535) which suggested that members of these two dusters are genetically very close. The genotypes of heterogeneous origin are grouped together in some of the major clusters which infers that there was no parallelism between geographical and genetic diversity suggesting thereby that parents should be selected on the basis of total divergence for the characters used for an overall improvement in the yield.