Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2017) 6(10): 1197-1202 1197 Original Research Article https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2017.610.144 Estimation of Genetic Diversity among Superior CPTs of Acacia nilotica Amit Singhdoha, R.S. Dhillon and Vishal Johar * Department of Forestry, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hiasr -125004, Haryana, India *Corresponding author ABSTRACT Introduction Acacia is a large woody genus comprising more than 1000 species occurring naturally all over the world. The generic name ‘Acacia’ comes from the greek word ‘akis’, meaning a barb or a point. The species Acacia nilotica (L.) Willd.ex Del belongs to family Fabaceae and commonly known as kikar or babul. According to Champion and Seth (1968), the species is growing naturally in southern tropical dry deciduous forests and southern tropical thorn forests therefore, the species is considered to be native of Indian Sub- continent, Burma, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, Tropical Africa, Egypt and in West and East Sudan. The largest tracts are found in Sind. It is distributed throughout the greater part of India in forest areas, farmlands, agriculture fields, roadsides, tank foreshores, village grazing lands, bunds, waste lands, along the railway lines and the national highways. Mostly it occurs as an isolated tree and rarely found in patches to a limited extent in forests. It has been widely planted on farms throughout the plains of the Indian subcontinent. A. niloticais a narrow leaved, thorny, medium-sized tree with a short trunk, which attains a height up to 18 m and a girth up to 3 m in favourable environment. It is a single stemmed, evergreen tree having round spreading crown with feathery foliage. It has International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 6 Number 10 (2017) pp. 1197-1202 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com Sixty candidate plus trees (CPTs) of Acacia nilotica were selected through intensive survey among six different provenances/ geographical area. Selection was based on the characters of economic interest viz. Straightness, self-pruning ability, clear bole height, low branching habit, disease resistance. Various pod and seed parameters were collected to estimate diversity among different CPTs from various provenances. It was observed that the CPTs were distributed among seven different clusters representing diversity among each other. It was observed that Cluster I was the largest having fourteen CPTs followed by cluster V. Average intra-cluster distance was found maximum in cluster I followed by cluster IV and cluster II while, the inter cluster varied from 2.681 to 5.734, the maximum being between cluster I and VII. The present study revealed that the hybridization between the more divergence genotypes of A. nilotica can produce genotypes with high hetrotic vigour. Keywords Acacia nilotica, Candidate Plus tree, Genetic Diversity and Mahalanobis D 2 statistic. Accepted: 10 September 2017 Available Online: 10 October 2017 Article Info