Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2017) 6(4): 2673-2682 2673 Original Research Article https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2017.604.311 Cluster Analysis to Form Similarity for Major Selected Crops in Rajasthan, India Lokesh Kumar Meena 1 *, Chandra Sen 2 and Saket Kushwaha 2 1 Department of Agricultural Economics, Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour-813210, Bhagalpur, Bihar (India) 2 Department of Agricultural Economics, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi-221005 (India) *Corresponding author: ABSTRACT Introduction Cluster analysis is a convenient method for identifying homogenous groups of objects called clusters. Objects (or cases, observations) in a specific cluster share many characteristics, but are very dissimilar to objects not belonging to that cluster. Now a day’s Agricultural expert systems are being used extensively almost in every walk of life. Various tools also have been evolved for evaluating, justifying, upgrading and modifying the existing agricultural expert systems thus making them more useful in their intended purposes 8 .Cluster analysis was used in this study. Its tool for exploratory data analysis and based on grouping of relatively homogenous classes 7, 10 , the main aim of cluster analysis is an attempt to combine cases into groups when the group membership was International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 6 Number 4 (2017) pp. 2673-2682 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com The main objective of the study was to form similarity based on area, production and productivity for different crops of Rajasthan for which the secondary data on area, production and productivity of 23 different major crops i.e. period from 1980 to 2014 were collected. The study period was classified as Pre WTO era from 1980-1995 and Post WTO era from 1996-2014. Ward’s method of clustering under hierarchical cluster analysis was used and Dendrogram shows the graphical representation of the results of hierarchical cluster analysis. Results found that wheat, mustard & rapeseed, gram cotton and bajra crop showed similarity in area across all the districts during the first period while in the second period only wheat, mustard & rapeseed and bajra crops had similarity in area across all the districts. Area of gram and cotton has shifted over the years in the second period of study. Results also indicated that wheat, gram, mustard & rapeseed, bajra and cotton had similarity in production across all the districts during the first period. While only wheat and bajra showed similarity in production across all the districts in second period. Wheat and bajra were the crops which made clusters in production across all the districts of Rajasthan from first period to second period. Potato and wheat crops had similarity in productivity across all the districts during the first period while the crops like coriander, potato, wheat, garlic and pea had similarity in productivity across all the districts of Rajasthan. Only wheat and bajra were the crops which had similarity in productivity across all the districts of Rajasthan from first period to second period. Keywords Cluster, Hierarchical Clustering, Ward Method, Euclidian Distance, Dendrogram. Accepted: 25 March 2017 Available Online: 10 April 2017 Article Info