The nature and
extent of genetic diversity were assessed among 23 parents of pigeonpea hybrids
employing Mahalanobis D2 statistics. Based on relative magnitude of
D2, the genotypes were grouped into five different
non-overlapping clusters. Cluster III, having 8 genotypes, emerged with highest
number of entries; cluster I, II and V were constituted by four genotypes each
while cluster IV, comprising three genotypes, had least number of entries. The
highest contribution in manifestation of genetic divergence was exhibited by
100-seed weight followed by pods per plant, days to maturity, harvest index,
biological yield per plant, days to 50% flowering and seed yield per plant. The
maximum intra-cluster distance was observed for cluster III, followed by
cluster IV, cluster I and cluster V. The highest inter-cluster distance was
recorded between cluster II and IV followed by cluster I and IV and cluster V
and II. The crossing between entries belonging to cluster pairs having large
inter-cluster distance and possessing high cluster means for one or other characters
to be improved may be recommended for isolating desirable recombinants in the
segregating generations in pigeonpea. Considering the mean performance for
different characters of genotypes belonging to diverse clusters, the promising
genotypes identified were NDA 2, NDA 7-11, IPA 208 and NDA
5-14 of cluster I; NDA 3-3, NDA 98-6, Amar and NDACMS 1-3A of cluster II; NDACMS 1-4A, NDACMS 1-6A and ICP 870 of cluster
IV and NDA 96-6, ICP 2155, NDA 8-6 and NDAGC 1010 of
cluster V for exploitation as parents in hybridization programme for development
of superior pigeonpea hybrid cultivars.