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Received: 4th October 2021; Accepted : 11th November 2021

Abstract

The present investigation was carried out to explore the extent of divergence in 55 rice germplasm accessions for twelve characters during Kharif, 2019. In D2 analysis, the 55 genotypes were grouped into fourteen clusters. The clustering pattern indicated that there was no parallelism between genetic diversity and geographical origin as the genotypes of the same origin were included in different clusters and vice versa. The maximum inter cluster distance was found between cluster IX and cluster XIII (1313.049) followed by cluster X and cluster XIII (1152.033), cluster XII and cluster XIII (1039.108), cluster III and cluster XIII (1015.310) and cluster I and cluster XIII (978.369). Genetically distant parents from these clusters could be able to produce higher heterosis in progenies on hybridization. Single plant yield (43.29%) followed by grain length (12.99%), 100 grain weight (12.12%) grain width (11.85%) and days to 50% flowering (11.85%) were the major contributors towards the total genetic divergence among the genotypes studied. Selection could be made based on grain yield per plant, hundred grain weight and days to 50% flowering for the progenies identified.