Genetic diversity study among maize (Zea mays L.) inbred lines

Abstract

Twenty-five maize inbred lines were evaluated during rabi 2020-21 at AICRP on maize, Dharwad to assess thegenetic diversity for different quantitative characters. The principal component analysis (PCA) identified first two principlecomponents with more than 1.0 eigenvector and cumulatively explained 73.0 % of the total variance. The Tocher’s clusteranalysis was worked out wherein; the 25 inbred lines were grouped into eight different clusters. Cluster IV had a maximumof five inbred lines, while cluster VIII had only one entry. Mahalanobis D2analysis was performed to know inter and intracluster distances. Cluster VII displayed maximum intra cluster distance of 133.59 among the clusters.The inter clusterdistance was maximum with D2 value of 649.90 between cluster III (VL 105554, KL 154690, VL 162563 and VL 18329) andcluster VIII (CI-4) followed by cluster V (VL 143906, VL 1110195, VL 109126 and VL 174449) and VIII (CI-4). It wassuggested to intercross inbred lines from diverse cluster III, V, and VIII in order to develop superior hybrids with maximumheterosis. Among the eleven quantitative traits studied, days to 50 per cent silking contributed maximum of 24 % to the totaldivergence followed by grain yield and hundred grain weight.