Genetic Diversity Studies in Super-early Pigeonpea [Cajanu cajan (L.) Millsp.]

Background: Pigeonpea is an important legume crop in India. The super early genotypes which matures within 100 days have been developed at ICRISAT. They are photo-insensitive, aids in crop intensification and escapes abiotic and biotic stresses. The super early genotypes were exploited for genetic diversity for further improvement of the genotypes. Methods: The study was conducted at International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Patancheru, Telangana during kharif, 2017. The thirty-super early pigeonpea genotypes developed at ICRISAT were subjected for the study of genetic diversity (Mahalanobis D2 method) based on twelve quantitative characters. Result: The 30 super early genotypes were grouped into five clusters. The largest number of genotypes were confined to cluster III (19 genotypes) followed by cluster IV (6 genotypes), cluster I and II (2 genotypes). Cluster V is a solitary cluster with the check MN1.The inter cluster distance was high between the clusters III and IV followed by cluster I and III. The intra cluster distance was highest for the cluster III indicating the presence of variation among the genotypes within the cluster. The highest mean for single plant yield was observed for the cluster III followed by cluster V. The clusters with more inter cluster distance can be used to select parents to be involved in hybridization programmes.