Nature of Genetic Divergence among Some Cotton Genotypes

Inherent divergence and parenthood of germplasm could play an important role in genetic improvement of cotton. The present investigation was conducted to assess the genetic divergence among 14 local cotton genotypes and six exotic genotypes using multivariate Mahalanobis D2 statistics and metroglyph analysis. The results showed highly significant differences among these genotypes for the studied quantitative characteristics. The Mahalanobis D2 statistics showed that the dissimilarity coefficients were significant and highly significant, and ranged from 3.263 to 190.89, indicating a high amount of genetic divergence for these cotton genotypes. The metroglyph analysis grouped these genotypes into eight different clusters based on seven quantitative cotton characteristics. The intercluster D2 values ranged from 11.381 to 178.902 among these groups, whereas the intracluster D2 values ranged from 3.263 to 47.806. On the basis of this grouping, it was concluded that hybridization between genotypes of different clusters might be expected to give new genetic recombinants for the improvement of economic characteristics. This information could be utilized for hybridization between distinct genotypes to increase cotton genetic variability.