Assessment of genetic diversity in pigeonpea: [Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.] implications for breeding and crop improvement

Background: Pigeonpea is an important legume crop in India. Pigeonpea is often cross-pollinated crop and it belongs to the ‘Fabaceae’ family. As a legume crop, pigeonpea also improve soil through symbiotic nitrogen fixation. Determining genetic diversity is an important stage in any crop development programme, since it affects the choice of parents because hybrids between parents with different genetic backgrounds show greater heterosis than those between parents with similar genetic backgrounds. Methods: The study was conducted at at Agronomy instructional farm, C. P. College of Agriculture, Sardarkrushinagar Dantiwada Agricultural University, Sardarkrushinagar, Gujarat. During kharif, 2021. The fifty pigeonpea genotypes developed at pulses research station, SDAU, Sardarkrushinagar were subjected for the study of genetic diversity (Mahalanobis D2 method) based on twelve quantitative characters. Result: The 50 genotypes were grouped into six clusters. The largest number of genotypes were confined to cluster I (21 genotypes) followed by cluster II (13 genotypes), cluster III and IV (6 genotypes). Cluster V (3 genotypes) and cluster VI is a solitary. The inter cluster distance was high between the clusters III and IV followed by cluster IV and VI and Clusters II and IV. Cluster V exhibited the highest intra-cluster distance, indicating greater variability within this cluster. Cluster I also showed significant intra-cluster diversity. The highest mean for Seed yield per plant was observed for the cluster I followed by cluster II. The clusters with more inter cluster distance can be used to select parents to be involved in hybridization programmes.