Abstract

In a hybridisation programme, varieties obtained from different geographic and ecological regions are being utilised with the assumption of their natural diversity and desirable improvement is expected in their progenies. The validity of this assumption depends upon the association between geographic and genetic diversity. Mahalanobis's D- Statistic based on multivariate analysis measures the amount of genetic diversity in given populations in respect of characters considered together. Genetic diversity has been studied by Murty and Pavate (1962) in Nicotiana tabacum L., Murty and Qadri (1966) in brown sarson Arunachalam and Jawahar Ram (1967) in Sorghum, Murty and Tiwari (1967) in Pennisetum typhoides Burm., Anand and Murty (1968) in linseed, Singh and Bains (1968) and Singh and Gupta (1968) in cotton. Sandhu and Sangha (unpub.) had found a fairly high degree of genetic diversity in a group of 27 varieties of bunch groundnut. The object of this paper is to study the genetic divergence in another group of 27 varieties using D- statistic to determine whether it is related to geographic divergence.

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