Genetic divergence in castor (Ricinus communis L.).

Castor is one of the non - edible oilseed crop cultivated all over the world. Knowledge on genetic divergence is the foremost important tool for the initiation of any successful breeding programme. The present investigation aims to reveals the nature and magnitude of diversity that exist among the 70 castor genotypes based on 11 biometrical traits, using Mahalanobis D2 statistics. Based on the genetic distance, 70 castor genotypes were grouped into seven different clusters. Among the characters studied, seed yield per plant (45.96 per cent) had major contribution to the total divergence. The maximum interclusters distance was recorded between genotypes cluster IV and cluster VI. The maximum interacluster distance was observed in the cluster VII (28.28). Thus, selection of genotypes from diverse clusters for future hybridization programme as a parental genotypes will helps to obtain segregants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]