IDENTIFICATION OF POTENTIAL LENTIL (LENS CULINARIS MEDIK) GENOTYPES FOR MONOCROPPING AND LENTIL-LINSEED CROPPING SYSTEM BASED ON GENETIC DIVERGENCE.

Genetic diversity was studied in 44 lentil genotypes including one check (Vipasha) procured from different agencies using Mohalanobis D2 statistics. Quantitative classification serves as sound basis of grouping any two or more genotypes based on minimum divergence or resemblance between them. D2-statistic provides quantitative measurement of divergence among genotypes besides defining the relative contribution of different characters to differentiate among genotypes. Study of genetic divergence revealed that selection of parents for hybridization should be on genetic diversity rather than on their geographical distribution. As clustering pattern changed with the different cropping system which indicates that genotypic performance is highly influenced by the environment. Seeds per plant and seed yield per plant, pods per plant and pod cluster per plant being the potential contributor to the divergence at both genotypic and inter-cluster level. Divergence study suggested crosses should be involved using L 1-27, Vipasha, HPCL-2104, HPCL-2116, HPCL-2119, L 1-3, L 1-26, HPCL-2127, HPCL-2129, HPCL-2136, HPCL-2142, HPCL-2144, HPCL-2153, HPCL-2157, HPCL-2167, HPCL-2170 and HPCL-2174 with Precoz, L 1-24 and L-90-57 to get desirable recombinants for both the cropping systems in future lentil improvement programme.