Pattern of diversity based on phenological and productivity traits in chickpea ( C icer arietinum

One hundred twenty six Recombinant Inbred Lines (RILs) derived from a cross ICCV-2 x JG 62 along with six checks were evaluated to study the genetic divergence. Mahalonobis (1936) D statistic analysis was used for assessing the genetic divergence among the RIL’s involving phenological and yield component traits. The 132 genotypes formed 15 clusters and out of which 8 clusters were solitary suggesting the very diverse nature of 8 RILs from rest of the genotypes. But no distinct grouping of desi and kabuli types were observed indicating reasonably high degree of recombination between JG 62 and ICCV 2. The two solitary clusters, VIII and X showed their distinctiveness from the other groups as reflected by generally higher magnitude of inter cluster distance values of these two clusters with other clusters and are characterised by mean high pod number, seed yield and ideal duration of reproductive phase. As for degree of contribution of each character to divergence, the pods per plant contributed maximum (76.58%).