Genetic Divergence for Seed Yield Morpho Genetic and Quality Traits in Chickpea Cicer arietinum L

Abstract

The present study entitled Genetic divergence for seed yield, morpho-genetic and quality traits in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) was carried out at Pulses Research Sub-Station (PRSS), Samba, during Rabi seasons 2017-18 and 2018-19. The experimental material comprising of 48 chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) genotypes along with 5 checks were evaluated in Augmented Block Design at two locations viz, Advanced Center for Rain-fed Agriculture (ACRA), Rakh Dhiansar and Pulses Research Sub-Station (PRSS), Samba. newlineAnalysis of variance indicated the presence of notable genetic variability among chickpea genotypes for yield, its components and quality traits for all the character studied. Estimates of components of variance indicated that genotypic variance contributed maximum to the phenotypic variance thereby, suggesting that the available genetic variability can be exploited through selection and hybridization. Correlation and path analysis studies revealed that seed yield per plant was positively and significantly associated with biological yield (g), harvest index (%) and hard grains (%) and was negatively associated with number of branches per plant, number of pods per peduncle, pod length, water absorption (%) overnight soaking and water uptake (%) at cooking time. Path coefficient analysis for seed yield per plant showed that the direct effect was maximum for biological yield followed by harvest index. Based on D2 analysis 48 chickpea genotypes were grouped into seven clusters. Among the VII clusters, cluster I consists of 30 genotypes forming the largest cluster followed by cluster II with 16 genotypes, cluster VII with three genotypes and cluster III, IV, V and VI with one genotype each. Inter cluster distance were found to higher than intra cluster distances depicting wide genetic diversity among the chickpea genotypes under study. The genotypes of cluster VII, II and V had highest inter-cluster distances as well as higher cluster means for most of the yield component traits indicating that these genotypes were mo