DIVERGENCE ANALYSIS AND ASSOCIATION OF SOME ECONOMICAL CHARACTERS OF SUGARCANE (SACCHARUM OFFICINARUM L.)

The experiment was carried out in the Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad to examine the genetic variability and contribution of some morphological characters for cane yield and sucrose %age. Eleven varieties of sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) were evaluated for correlation, metroglyph analysis and divergence analysis. Data on various economic important traits like plant height, cane height, number of tillers /plant, number of leaves/plant, leaf area, cane diameter, cane weight, dry matter contents, juice contents, sucrose value and brix value was recorded. The results pertaining to analysis of variance elucidated highly significant differences among the accessions for all the traits except number of leaves/plant and considerable range of variability. Correlations among various traits were computed and found that association of brix value with cane diameter, leaf area, dry matter contents and sucrose value was positive and significant at genotypic level and positive but highly significant at phenotypic level. Correlation of brix value with number of leaves, cane weight and beggas weight was positive but significant at genotypic and non- significant at phenotypic level. Metroglyph analysis showed that eight clusters had been made with different index scores. Divergence analysis showed that genetic dissimilarity was highest between No.46 and SPF-232 and was lowest among SPSG-26 and COJ-84. Brix value had the highest contribution to genetic divergence followed by cane height and cane weight due to genetic dissimilarity among the genotypes for these traits. The cane diameter and sucrose value had no contribution to the total genetic divergence due to genetic similarity among the genotypes.