Morphological Characterization and Genetic Divergence Analysis in Mungbean [vigna Radiata (L) Wilczek]

Abstract

The present investigation entitled, "Morphological characterization and genetic divergence analysis in mungbean [Vig11a radiata (L.)Wilczek]" involving twenty eight genotypes was undertaken to examine the genetic variability, heritability, genetic advance, correlation coefficient, path coefficient analysis and genetic divergence. All the twenty eight genotypes were tested in randomized block design with 3 replications during kharif 20I3. Observations were recorded for days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, plant height (em), pod length, pods per plant, clusters per plant, seeds per pod, pods per cluster, biological yield per plant(g), 100- seed weight(g), seed yield per plant(g) and harvest index(%). Analysis of variance revealed substantial amount of variability among the genotypes for all the characters, under study, indicated wide spectrum of variability among the genotypes. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance were observed for clusters per plant, pod length, harvest index, branches per plant, plant height and I 00 seed weight. Improvement in yield can be made by selecting these yield contributed traits having high heritability coupled with high genetic advance. Phenotypic correlations were of higher magnitude as compare to their corresponding genotypic correlation in most of the character combination. Seed yield was found to be positive and significantly correlated with harvest index, pods per plant, clusters per plant, pods per cluster and I 00-seed weight. Thus any selection based on these characters will enhance performance and improvement in mungbean. Path coefficient analysis showed that harvest index followed by clusters per plant, 1 00-seed weight, seeds per pods, pods per plant, biological yield per plant, pod length and branches per plant were the most important characters, controlling directly to seed yield. Mahalanobis D2 statistic revealed considerable genetic diversity among the genotypes. The genotypes grouped into six clusters. The VI and IV cluster having the maximum number of genotypes. This envisaged that the genotypes grouped within a particular cluster are more or less genetically similar to each other and apparent wide diversity is mainly due to the remaining genotype distributed over rest of the other cluster. Divergence study suggested that crosses suggesting genotypes like IPM 05-2 with IM2K I4-5, LOGG 912 and Pant mung-6 for getting desired segregants from breeding point of view.