HIERARCHICAL CLUSTERING OF INDIAN WHEAT VARIETIES USING MORPHOLOGICAL DIVERSITY ASSESSMENT.

Morphological data for 36 descriptors of 258 bread wheat varieties was used to identify traits actually contributing for genetic variability using SAS software program. Total 20 morphological traits were found to be significant in expression of diversity in a selected set. These identified descriptors were used to study genetic diversity expression for hierarchical cluster analysis on the standardized quantitative data, using Ward's minimum variance method with an R² (squared multiple correlation) of 0.70 for grouping the accessions as per the PROC-CLUSTER program in SAS. The cluster tree revealed twenty seven genetically similar groups for 258 wheat genotypes. These groups will be used to develop mini core set of bread wheat varieties that will represent the morphological diversity available in Indian bread wheat and may be valuable for biochemical and molecular interpretations of diverse alleles present in Indian wheat for morphogenetic traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]