Assessment of Genetic Diversity in Groundnut (Arachis hypogea L.) Germplasm Using Morphological Traits

This experiment was conducted to evaluate genetic diversity in 72 peanut accessions (Arachis hypogaea L.), which introduced from seed bank of Australia in training and seed production research center of oilseeds company, Iran. Twelve major morphological traits recorded during 2013 growing season using a randomized complete block design with three replications. The results showed that the difference between genotypes for all traits was significant. In addition, coefficient of phenotypic variation was greater than coefficient of genotypic variation for all traits, indicating the effect of environment on recorded traits. The broad-sense heritability ranged from 80.25% (for seed width) to 99.54% (for 100 seed weight) and was 96.85% for grain yield. The highest phenotypic and genotypic coefficients of variation obtained for the pod weight, thus, it is possible to improve this trait by selection method and this trait could use as a selection index to improve grain yield. Genetic correlation indicated a high significant correlation between grain yield with grain weight and pod yield. The studied genotypes divided to four groups by cluster analysis based on Ward method.