Studies on heterosis, genetic analysis and character association in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

Abstract

The present study was carried out by the line x tester analysis involving 9 lines and 4 testers for 10 quantitative characters viz; days to 50 % flowering, days to maturity, plant height, number of primary branches per plant, number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod, biological yield per plant, grain yield per plant, harvest index (%) and 100 grain weight to find out combining ability, heritability, genetics advance, correlation coefficient, path coefficient and heterosis in Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.). The parents and their F1s were evaluated in a Randomized Block Design with three replications at Crop Research Centre (Chirori) of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel University of Agriculture and Technology, Meerut (U.P.) during rabi, 2018-19. Analysis of variance revealed substantial amount of variability for all the characters, indicating wide spectrum of variation among the genotypes. Estimates of phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) was higher than the genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) for all the traits, but little differences were recorded between PCV and corresponding GCV values for all the traits, which indicated that there was not much influence of environment in the expression of the traits, under study. High GCV and PCV (> 20%) was observed for number of pods per plant only. Moderate (10-20%) was observed for plant height, number of primary branches per plant, number of seeds per pod, biological yield per plant, grain yield per plant and 100 grain weight. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance was exhorted for plant height, number of primary branches per plant, number of pods per plant, biological yield per plant, grain yield per plant and 100 grain weight. These traits may be considered directly in selection programme for the improvement in productivity of chickpea crop. Grain yield per plant displayed highly significant and positive association with harvest index, 100 grain weight, number of primary branches per plant, number of pods per plant and biological yield per plant. Thus, it can be inferred that selection on any one of these traits either alone or in combination, will result in identifying high yielding genotype. Path coefficient analysis for grain yield per plant involving 9 independent variables revealed that biological yield per plant and harvest index displayed high order of direct effect on grain yield per plant, this indicated that grain yield per plant could be improve by selection based on these traits. The estimates of variance due to line x tester showed highly significant for all the characters. Further partitioning of treatment variance into parents exhibited highly significant differences for all the characters, while crosses were revealed highly significant differences for all the attributes except 100 grain weight. Variance due to parent vs crosses was observed significant for all the traits. The variance among line with respect to gca was found highly significant for all the attributes i.e. days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, plant height, number of primary branches per plant, number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod, biological yield per plant, grain yield per plant, harvest index (%), 100 grain weight. The variance among testers with respect to gca was recorded highly significant for all the characters, while variances among crosses due to interaction between lines x testers genotypes with respect to sca were expressed highly significant for all the studied characters indicating that both additive and dominance genetic variance were involved in the determination of these attributes and the parents and their progenies differed for their combining ability effects. The lines GNG-1581 was found to be as good general combiner for maximum 7 characters (Days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, number of primary branches per plant, number of pods per plant, biological yield per plant and harvest index) together with grain yield per plant, and ICCV-1400 and JG 94-115 for 6 attributes (Plant height, number of primary branches per plant, number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod and biological yield per plant) respectively. Among the testers, Sadbhavana and BG-1088 were appeared as good general combiner for maximum 6 traits (Days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, number of primary branches per plant, number of pods per plant and harvest index) including grain yield per plant. These parents may be handled in suitable breeding programme visa-vis selection breeding for improvement productivity of chickpea crop. On the basis of overall results and per se performance the F1’s hybrids i.e. JG-211 x BG-1088 and JG 94-115 x Sadbhavana were emerged to be as best specific combiners for maximum attributes including grain yield per plant for 4 (Plant height, number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod and harvest index) to 5 (Days to 50% flowering, biological yield and 100 grain weight) other contributing traits, which may be utilized for obtaining transgressive segregants in the next generation. The best heterotic response for yield and other yield contributing traits exhibited (more than 15%) a reasonable and significant increase over both better and mid parents. These cross combinations in order of merit were ICCV-14511 x Pant G-114, ICCV-1407 x Pant G-114, ICCV-1400 x Pant G-114 and JG-39 x Pant G-114 may be used in heterosis breeding programme for the improvement in yield of chickpea crop.