DOI: 10.36347/sjavs.2018.v05i04.003

Pages: 199-204

Abstract: An experiment was conducted at Laboratory of Plant Systematics of the Department of Crop Botany, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh during April/2017 to evaluate morphological traits of seed and seedling attributes and to estimate genetic diversity of Sesbania genotypes using multivariate statistics. The experiment was laid out as a complete randomized design with four replications. The highest coefficient of variation was observed in root length (RL) followed by total dry matter (TDM), vigor index (VI) and base diameter (BD) of seedling. There was significant, either positive or negative, relationship among different morphological traits for seed and seedling. The positive correlation was found for TDM with seed width (SW), 1000-seed weight; shoot length (ShL) and BD. However, the VI was positively correlated with seed length (SL), ShL, RL and germination percentage (GP) and negatively correlated with BD. First three principal components (PCs) viz. PC1, PC2 and PC3 contributed 32.03, 26.31 and 12.54% of total variance with the discriminating value of 2.88, 2.37 and 1.13, respectively. The highest contribution for total genetic divergence was attributed by 1000-seed weight followed TDM, SW, ShL and RL. The 1000-seed weight played the highest contribution towards the total divergence followed by TDM, SW, ShL and RL. In cluster analysis, significant genetic diversity was found for the studied genotype of seed and seedling traits. The cluster-1 exhibited the highest average values for SL, RL, GP and VI, and cluster-3 showed the highest values SW, 1000-seed weight, ShL, BD and TDM. Thus, indicated that there was significant genetic diversity for seed and seedling morphological traits of studied Sesbania genotypes. Considering all of the studied traits for seed and seedling would be helpful for selection of diverse genotypes and these diverse genotypes could be the good genetic materials for improvement of Sesbania genotypes.