A study of character association and genetic divergence in INDIAN mustard (Brassica juncea L. Cezern & Coss.)

An experiment with twenty two genotypes of Indian mustard was conducted Research Farm, CCS University, Meerut during rabi 2008–09 to study the character association and genetic divergence on ten quantitative characters in mustard. Significant genotypic differences were observed for all the traits studied indicating considerable amount of variation among genotypes for each character. The grain yield had highly significant and positive association with biological yield, number of secondary branches, and plant height, whereas, positive but non significant correlation coefficient was observed with siliqua per plant, siliqua length, number of primary branches and 1000-seed weight. Path coefficient analysis revealed that biological yield showed maximum direct and positive contribution with grain yield. Total genotypes were grouped into six clusters with maximum number of genotypes (6) in cluster IV and minimum in cluster I and II with two genotypes each. The maximum inter-cluster distance was observed between clusters I and II, indicating wide divergence among the genotypes of these clusters. It is therefore, suggested that the genetic architecture of the genotypes in one clusters differed entirely from those included in other clusters and these genotypes can be utilized for genetic improvement of Indian mustard by hybridization and selection.