Multivariate analysis over environments of multiple disease resistant lines of chickpea

Forty-two multiple disease resistant chickpea genotypes of diverse origin along with six approved cultivars were evaluated in four environments. Data on five competitive plants were recorded on days to flowering and maturity, reproductive phase (days), number of primary and secondary branches, length of fruit bearing portion (cm), number of nodes per plant (g), plant height (cm), pods per plant, harvest index (%), 100 seed weight (g) and seed yield per plant (g). Mahalanobis's D2 statistics was used to group 48 genotypes into six clusters. Cluster I had 32 genotypes in combined analysis, while cluster II had eight genotypes. Cluster V and VI each had only one genotype. Genotypes in cluster V were highly divergent from genotypes of cluster I and cluster IV. Intra-cluster divergence was highest among genotypes of cluster III. The deletion of character 100 seed weight had increased the number of clusters for six to 10. When days to 50% flowering was deleted, the number of clusters reduced from six to four. Based on moderate inter-cluster distance and high mean performance for seed yield per plant and 100-seed weight, it is expected that the crosses of the genotypes of cluster I and IV with that of cluster V would produce transgressive segregants in chickpea.