Genetic Divergence Studies in Safflower, Carthamus tinctorius L

The present study was carried out to study the genetic divergence among 75 germplasm lines of safflower. Analysis of variance revealed significant variation among the genotypes for all the characters studied. Among the genotypes, GMU 3327, GMU 3279, GMU 3325 and GMU 3313 were found to be promising on the basis of per se performance for seed yield. Seed yield exhibited maximum contribution towards genetic divergence followed by number of capitula per plant, number of seeds per capitulum, oil content, days to 50% flowering and days to maturity. The genotypes were grouped into 8 clusters out of which cluster II is having maximum of 23 genotypes followed by cluster I with 20 genotypes. Maximum inter cluster distance was observed between clusters VII and VIII followed by clusters VI and VIII, clusters IV and VIII and clusters I and VIII .