Dissecting Genetic Variation and Associations in Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) through Biparental Population Analysis
Amit Kumar
Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar-263145, Uttarakhand, India.
Anju Arora *
Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar-263145, Uttarakhand, India.
Shubham Kumawat
Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar-263145, Uttarakhand, India.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Aims: The genetic variability in the germplasm collection has been used to create resistant cultivars to combat stresses that limit productivity due to linkage drag. North Carolina Design-III system is very effective in breaking undesirable linkage and creating genetic variability in a population.
Study Design: North Carolina Design-III was used for the experiment.
Place and Duration of Study: The experiment was conducted at NEBCRC, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, between rabi 2020-21 to 2023-24.
Methodology: The experiment developed a biparental population by crossing a high-yielding genotype GNG 2127 with a line P 13273 and evaluated them in RCBD with two replications.
Results: The analysis of variance revealed that a significant difference was observed for the examined traits. The highest variance was found for a number of pods plant-1 followed by biological yield plant-1 and harvest index due to male, female and male-female interaction. The highest value of GCV and PCV was observed for biological yield plant-1 followed by a number of secondary branches plant-1, number of pods plant-1, harvest index and seed yield plant-1. The maximum value of heritability and genetic advance as a percent of the mean was recorded for the biological yield plant-1. Seed yield plant-1 showed a highly positive and significant correlation with traits viz., number of secondary branches plant-1, number of pods plant-1, biological yield plant-1 and harvest index. Path coefficient analysis exhibited a positive and direct effect for the number of pods plant-1 and harvest index and a low residual effect.
Conclusion: The results showed a sufficient amount of variance for the studied traits that may be used to improve plant architecture and other traits in BIPs.
Keywords: Chickpea, NCD-III, genetic variability, correlation coefficient, path analysis