GENETIC DIVERGENCE AMONG ELITE SUGARCANE CLONES (Saccharum officinarum L.) BASED ON CANE YIELD AND QUALITY TRAITS FROM NORTHERN INDIA

Genetic divergence among the twenty four sugarcane genotypes collected from various sugarcane research institutions of northern India were tested in a randomized complete block design with three replicates during the cropping seasons 2013 - 14. The assessment of the genetic diversity was based on the eighteen cane yield and quality characters. The results of the study indicated that, the genotypes were grouped into five clusters based on the genetic distance using Mahalanobis's statistics. Higher inter-cluster distance was recorded between cluster II and V (89.668) indicating high genetic diversity among these two clusters. Thus, exploitation of genotypes within these two clusters as parents for crossing could produce good sugarcane segregants. The lowest intra cluster distance was reported in the cluster III (14.897) revealed that clones are identical and can not to be used as parents in crossing that results hybrid not desirable for the characters studied. A critical analysis of cluster means for different traits indicated that cluster I was desirable for cane yield, CCS (t/ha), single cane weight, stalk diameter, germination (%), cluster II was better for juice extraction percentage, cluster III for better juice purity percent, brix (%), sucrose (%) and CCS (%) for 12 months and cluster V was the best source for NMC (000/ha), stalk length with other good cane and sugar yield traits. The average D