Studies on Genetic Variability and Divergence Analysis in Blackgram [Vigna mungo (L.) Hepper] Using Mahalanobis D\(^2\) Statistic

Abstract

The current research used 29 distinct genotypes of blackgram and was carried out during the 2021 zaid season at the Crop Research Centre of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel University of Agriculture and Technology in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh. Many traits were noted, such as the number of days until 50% flowering, the number of days until maturity, the height of the plant, the number of branches per plant, the number of pods per plant, the length of the pods, the number of seeds per pod, the biological yield per plant, the test weight, the harvest index, the weight of all the pods per plant (g), and the seed yield per plant. Using analysis of variance, it was discovered that each of the twelve variables had a substantial degree of variability. Using analysis of variance, it was discovered that each of the twelve variables had a substantial degree of variability.   In contrast, biological yield per plant, pod length, days to 50% flowering, number of seeds per pod, grain yield per plant, harvest index, and days to maturity showed moderate (10–20%) and test weight showed low (<10%) characteristics. Plant height, number of pods per plant, weight of total pods/plant (g), and number of primary branches per plant showed high PCV & GCV. Furthermore, the importance of the environment in character expression was shown by the fact that the PCV estimate was greater than the matching GCV for each character. High heritability and substantial genetic progress were found for plant height alone, indicating that additive gene activity is the source of the heritability.  The twenty-nine Blackgram genotypes were split into five groups based on their D2 scores.   Cluster I included nine genotypes and was the largest of the five clusters.  Clusters II and V each contained four genotypes, but clusters III and IV each had six.   Cluster III had the greatest intra-cluster distance, followed by clusters II, I, and V. Cluster IV had the least distance (1.987).