Studies on genetic variability and inter relationship among yield and related traits of parents and F1 population in Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

Abstract

In the present investigation, crosses were made between 9 lines and 4 testers during Rabi, 2017-18 and sufficient F1 seed was obtained for all the 36 crosses. All the 13 parents and their 36 F1 were grown during Rabi 2018-19 in randomized block design (RBD) with three replications. Analysis of variance showed highly significant differences among all ten traits for 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, indicating the presence of considerable variability among the all traits. The PCV values were higher than GCV values for all the characters under study indicating more influence of environmental factors. However, narrow differences observed between the PCV and GCV in certain cases indicated that these characters were less influenced by the environment. Higher genotypic coefficient of variation was found for number of pods per plant and low genotypic coefficient of variation was found for days to 50% flowering, days to maturity and harvest index. Estimate of high (>60%) heritability (broad sense) was observed for the characters namely, days to 50 per cent 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, and 100 grain weight. The characters namely 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 exhibited high heritability and high genetic advance. Grain yield per plant had a highly significant positive correlation with number of primary branches per plant, number of pods per plant, biological yield per plant, harvest index and 100 grain weight at both the genotypic and phenotypic level. The results showed that biological yield per plant had maximum direct effect followed by harvest index on grain yield along with highly significant correlation in desirable direction towards grain yield per plant.