Vol. 11, Issue 1 (2022)

Author(s):
Karthikeyan M, Sharad Pandey, Gideon Synrem, Pramod Sharma and Vivek Singh

Abstract:
An experiment was conducted with twenty genotypes of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) to examine the presence of genetic variability which may further be utilized in breeding program. The experimental material was laid out in randomized block design with three replications at the experimental field of Himgiri Zee University, Dehradun during 2019-2020. Analysis of variance revealed that genotypes possessed significant genetic variability for all traits studied. The experimental results showed that the phenotypic coefficient of variation values were slightly higher than the genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) values indicating the variation is not only due to genotype but also due to favorable influence of the environment. The high estimates of genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) and phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) were observed for 100 seed weight (81.14, 83.25) respectively, followed by seed yield per plant (24.93, 25.10), number of primary branches (23.78, 23.96) and number of pods per plant (20.91, 21.11).High heritability (h2) coupled with high genetic advance as percent of mean (GAM) were observed for seed yield per plant, number of pods per plant, number of primary branches, number of secondary branches, 100 seed weight, plant height and protein content indicating that the heritability may be due to additive gene effects and selection may be effective for these characters for crop improvement Seed yield was significant and positively correlated with number of secondary branches (0.817* & 0.820*) at the genotypic and phenotypic level. Path coefficient results revealed Days to 50% flowering (0.3262), number of secondary branches (1.1094), 100 seed weight (0.0086) and Protein content (0.5648) had positive direct effects on the grain yield per plant.