Studies on Genetic Variability for Quantitative Characters in Chickpea (Cicer Arietinum L)

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted in Chickpea during Rabi season 2013-14 at Crop Research Centre of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel University of Agriculture & Technology, Meerut (U.P.) India. The present investigation entitled, "Studies on genetic variability for quantitative characters in chickpea (Cicer arielinum L.)" involving 45 genotypes was undertaken to study the genetic variability, heritability, genetic advance, correlation coefficient, path coefficient analysis and genetic divergence. All the 45 Chickpea genotypes were sown in randomized block design. The characters under study were namely days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, plant height, Number of primary branches per plant, pods per plant, seeds per pod, 100-seed weight, biological yield per plant, harvest index and grain yield per plant. Analysis of variance showed high signincant variance among the genotypes for all the characters, under study, indicating wide spectrum of variability among the genotypes. The Phenotypic coefficient of variation PCV observed high then genetic coefficient of variation (GCV) for all the character. High GCV % was observed for number of pods per plant, followed by biological yield per plant. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance observed for I 00 seed weight, number of pod per plant, biologic.al yield per plant, grain yield per plant for days to maturity and number of pod per plant. In general the character association studies, showed highly significant and positive correlation for grain yield with biological yield per plant, days to maturity number of primary branches per plant and number of pod per plant at genotypic and phenotypic levels. Path coefficient analysis of grain yield and its contributing characters revealed that biological yield per plant, harvest index, 100 seed weight and days to maturity had the highest positive direct effect on grain yield. The direct effect of days to flowering, number of pod per plant, plant height, number of seed per pod and grain per plant showed negative direct effects on grain yield but their correlation with grain yield was significantly positive which may be due to high positive indirect effects via other characters. The results of genetic divergence analysis indicated the presences of high amount of genetic diversity among the genotypes were taken up for the study. The 45 chickpea genotypes were grouped into eight clusters based on Mahalanobis D2 analysis. The highest inter cluster distance was found between cluster VII and II, whereas the lowest inter cluster difference was reflected between clusters VIII and III. The highest intra cluster difference was expressed b0 thecl~JwestbytheclustedV.