National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS)
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PRINT ISSN : 2319-7692
Online ISSN : 2319-7706 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcmas@gmail.com / submit@ijcmas.com Editor-in-chief: Dr.M.Prakash Index Copernicus ICV 2018: 95.39 NAAS RATING 2020: 5.38 |
Genetic diversity among 25 Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) accessions of different geographic origin was assessed using Mahalanobis D2 statistics. Observations revealed significant genotypic differences and accordingly genotypes were classified into five clusters. Cluster II was the largest comprising about 12 genotypes or 48% of the genotypes belonged to this cluster followed by cluster V and IV which contained 6 and 4 genotypes. The clusters I and III each had only 2 and 1 genotype, respectively. The highest inter-cluster distance was noted between clusters I and V (33.37) followed by cluster I and IV (27.41), III and I (26.66), I and II (25.84), V and III (22.14). The genotypes grouped in these clusters are found to be diverse. The least (10.83) inter-cluster distance was observed for cluster II and V followed by (12.21) inter cluster distance between II and IV, thereby indicating their genetic relatedness. The average intra-cluster distance between the genotypes was maximum (103.81) for the cluster II followed in descending order by cluster V (50.89), IV (28.83), I (13.85) and III (1.0), respectively. Cluster V had 6 genotypes over average values for number of primary branches per plant, days to 75% maturity, dry root yield per plant, total alkaloid content and total starch content and showed above average values for number of primary branches per plant, days to 75% maturity, dry root yield per plant, total alkaloid content and total starch content indicating their good potential for crop productivity. Thus, hybridization among these genotypes can generate desirable transgressive segregants.
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