Genetic divergence study on Bread wheat Triticum aestivum L. consisted 50 genotypes of various sources. The experiment was conducted at Zonal Agriculture Research Station, Powarkheda, Narmadapuram, Madhya Pradesh during Rabi season of 2019-20 & 2020-21 in Randomized Block design replicated twice. Standard package and practices were given to raise healthy crop. Results of analysis revealed their association into eight clusters. Approximate configurations of the clusters based on the D2 values. According to Mahalanobis' D2 statistic it can be concluded that days to maturity, biological yield, test weight and grain yield/plot contributed the most towards genetic diversity. The clustering pattern indicated no parallelism between the geographical distribution and genetic diversity. Genotypes selected from the two major divergent groups i.e. MP-120, MP-0422, MP-1116, MP-1370, NIAW-231 (from group-I) and C-591, CPAN-1532, C-306, PKD-1018, PKD-1112, SONALIKA, PKD-1203 (from group –II), may be used as parents for hybridization after determining their combining abilities, so as to obtained considerably batter and promising segregates and recombinants

Triticum aestivum, genetic divergence, multivariate analysis, D2-statistic

The diversity in the material was further disclosed by the existence of appreciable genetic diversity among the genotypes as the statistical D2 value represents the index of genetic diversity among the clusters. It would be appropriate to make crosses between genotypes belonging to the cluster separated by high estimates of statistical differences. This D2 statistical analysis to access genetic diversity has been shown to be very useful in selecting parents for hybridization that will meet the objectives of a plant breeder

Ravikant Soni, Animesh Chatterjee and Monika Singh (2023). Genetic Diversity Analysis in Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Biological Forum – An International Journal, 15(8): 608-612