DIVERSITY ANALYSIS OF CHICKPEA GERMPLASM FOR THE YIELD RELATED TRAITS

Abstract

Chickpea is one of the major food legumes cultivated on a large area in the world and is famous for highly proteinaceous seeds. Germplasm diversity plays a key role in chickpea improvement programs. In this regard, the experiment was conducted for the assessment of phenotypic diversity present in chickpea germplasm for yield-related traits. The 74 genotypes and 14 modern cultivars of chickpea were sown following the randomized complete block design at the farm area of MNS University of Agriculture, Multan, in November 2018. The evaluation was based on the morphological parameters including plant height (cm), number of pods per 5 plants, number of seeds per pod and 100 seed weight (g). The analysis of variance represented that significant differences were present for these traits among germplasm lines. Based on recorded results, the plant height ranged from 52.58 cm to 82.60 cm in genotypes and from 46.73 cm to 72.86 cm in cultivars. In the case of 100 seeds weight, the range was 13.99 g to 26.51 g in genotypes while 16.67 g to 22.58 g in cultivars. The number of pods in five plants ranged from 23.33 to 211.33 in genotypes and that of 98.33 to 210 in cultivars. Finally, the minimum and the maximum number of seeds per pod in genotypes were 1.53 and 2.93, respectively, while those in the case of the cultivars were 1.6 and 2.5, respectively. Further, based on yield-related traits viz. No. of pods per plant, No. of seeds per pod and 100 seed weight, the TGK1508 was the highest yielding genotype and the D072-11 remained the lowest yielding genotype while Fakhar-e-Thal performed best and was the highest yielding cultivar.