Genotypic divergence analysis for stay green characters in Wheat (Triticum aestivum L. em. Thell)

An experiment was conducted to study the genotypic divergence for stay green traits along with different morphophysiological characters under normal and late sown conditions. Genotypic divergence was carried out according to Mahalanobis D 2 statistics. The 36 genotypes were grouped into 9 clusters under normal sown and 6 clusters under late sown conditions revealing the presence of wide range of genotypic variation. Inter cluster D 2 values ranged from 21.9 (between Clusters V and VI) to 56.1 (between clusters VII and IX) under normal sown conditions and from 26.5 (between clusters III and IV) and 73.34 (between clusters II and V) in late sown condition. Genotypes WH147M and MLU2 (Cluster IX, normal sown and Cluster II late sown) exhibited strong stay green character. These can be used to transfer this trait into fast growing, high yielding and widely adapted genotypes like Raj 3765 to develop wheat varieties for various agro ecological conditions.