Mahfuzul Hoque.
Senior Scientific officer
plant breeding division
BARI,Gazipur
An experiment was carried out at RARS, BARI, Jamalpur during rabi 2008-09 to estimate genetic diversity among 32 inbreds of maize by using mahalanobis D2 statistic for ten characters. The genotypes were grouped into four clusters. The cluster IV contained the highest number of genotypes. The highest inter cluster distance was observed between II & IV and of lowest between I & II. Cluster IV had the highest mean values for all characters except row/cob. Cluster I had the lowest mean values for all characters but row/cob was found maximum in this cluster.
Genetic, Diversity, Inbreed, D2 analysis
Variety and Species
Exploitation of hybrid vigor and selection of parents based on important breeding approach is important in crop improvement. In maize it is well known that adequate genetic diversity is necessary in breeding program for development of high yielding varieties. The present study was therefore undertaken to analyze the genetic divergence of maize genotypes.
An experiment was set-up at RARS Jamalpur during rabi 2008-2009 to estimate genetic diversity among 32 inbreds of maize. The seeds of each entry were sown 25 December 2008 in two rows of 5m long with spacing 75x20cm. One plant was kept per hill after thinning. Fertilizers were applied @ 120, 80, 80, 20 and 5 and 1 kg/ha of N, P2O5, K2O S, Zn and B respectively. The other intercultural operations were done timely to rise the crop uniformly. Data were recorded from 10 randomly selected plants of the each row for plant height, ear height. Other data were recorded on whole plot basis including tasseling & silking. The data were then subjected to Mahalanabis D2 analysis using GENSTAT 5.0 program.
Research Report 2008-09
For early maturing and dwarf type of maize plants, the inbreds of cluster I would be selected for high yielding maize hybrid, inbred cluster IV would be used.
Report/Proceedings