Strategic Approaches for Genetic Enhancement of Quantitative and Physiological Traits in Advanced Breeding Lines of Chickpea

Performance on seed yield and yield attributing traits of 41 advance breeding lines were used to estimate parameters of genetic variability, association analysis and diversity analysis between seed yield and its contributing traits. Traits such as biological yield per plant, number of seeds per pod, seed yield per plant, stem thickness, height of first fruiting node, number of effective pods per plant, total number of pods per plant, harvest index and primary branches per plant revealed high genotypic and phenotypic coefficient of variation, heritability and genetic advance as percent of mean. High magnitude of positive direct effect and significantly positive correlations on seed yield per plant was found with number of effective pods per plant, biological yield per plant, harvest index and number of secondary branches per plant. Clustering analysis based on various morphological traits assorted 41 desi chickpea genotypes into four clusters. Traits like biological yield, plant height and 100 seed weight contributed most towards the genetic divergence. Genotypes ICCV211103, ICCV211106, ICCV211108, ICCV211111, ICCV211116, RVG 204, JG 24, JG 12, JG 16, Virat and Vishal recorded maximum positive principal component scores for the traits viz., plant height, total number of pods per plant, number of effective pods per plant, days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, stem thickness, biological yield per plant, harvest index, seed yield per plant, 100 seed weight and stem height at first fruiting node, therefore these genotypes will as promising donor lines for chickpea yield improvement.