Genetic divergence, variability and character association analysis in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) genotypes under normal and late sown conditions

Abstract

Forty five chickpea genotypes were evaluated under normal and late sown conditions during Rabi,2017-18 in the experimental field of the Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, C.C.S. University, Meerut Uttar Pradesh. The genotypes were sown in Randomized Block Design with three replications and observations were recorded for each genotype in each replication for all studied characters. Analysis of variance showed significant variation among all the genotypes for all the characters in both the conditions (normal and late sowing). The highest values of GCV and PCV were  recorded for the number of pods per plant, the number of seeds per plant, 100 seed weight, biological yield per plant, the number of seeds per pod and seed yield per plant. Heritability coupled with genetic advance as per cent of mean was recorded as high for the number of pods per plant, the number of seeds per plant, the number of seeds per pod, 100 seed weight, biological yield and seed yield per plant in both  conditions. Seed yield was significant and positively correlated with the number of pods per plant, the number of seeds per plant, the number of branches per plant and biological yield per plant in both  conditions. Furthermore, the biological yield per plant, harvest index, the number of seeds per plant and 100 seed weight showed a positive and direct effects toward the seed yield per plant under the both situations. Forty five genotypes were grouped into five clusters (Environment I) and four clusters (Environment II) in normal and late sowing, respectively. The maximum inter cluster distance was observed between clusters I and II for normal sowing and between clusters II and IV for late sowing conditions.

Keywords:  Chickpea, Correlation, Genetic Divergence, Heritability, Normal and late sowing