Estimation of genetic divergence in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) using Dsup2; analysis

The current study, titled "Genetic Evaluation of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) for yield contributing characters," was carried out at the Research and Education Farm, Department of Agriculture Botany, College of Agriculture, Dapoli, Dist. Ratnagiri, during the Rabi 2023-24. The D2 statistic was computed for 38 chickpea genotypes and one check of chickpea across 10 characters. The genotypes were subsequently classified into six clusters based on the D2 values. Cluster I was the largest, encompassing 22 genotypes, followed by Cluster II with 8 genotypes. Cluster IV contained 4 genotypes, while Cluster V had 3 genotypes. Clusters III and VI were each represented by a single genotype, highlighting their distinctiveness from other genotypes. The inter-cluster distances ranged from 40.04 (between clusters III and V) to 637.78 (between clusters II and IV). Among the 10 characters studied, the harvest index made the greatest contribution to genetic divergence, accounting for 36.03% and ranking first 267 times.