Morphological Evaluation of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) Genotypes Based on DUS Characteristics and Character Association among Seed Yield Characters

Twenty-one genotypes of chickpea were used in the experiment, which was carried out by using a Randomized Block Design with three replications at the Department of Genetics and Plant breeding, Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences, Naini Allahabad, U. P during the rabi season of 2021-22. The present investigation was carried out to morphologically characterization and classify chickpea genotypes on the basis of DUS descriptors suggested by PPV& FRA. The observations were recorded on five randomly selected plants from each replication for 12 different quantitative traits. Analysis of variance showed significant differences for all the 12 characters viz., Days to 50 % Flowering, Days to Maturity, pod initiation, Plant Height, Number of Primary Branches, Number of Secondary Branches, number of pods per plant, Number of effective pods per plant, Number of seeds per plant, Biological Yield, Harvest Index, economic Yield Per Plant, Seed Index. The results of the analysis of variance showed that the majority of the qualities were significantly variable. Among twenty-one genotypes, CG-297 recorded high seed yield per plant followed by CG-255, CG-288, CG-210 and CG-214. All these genotypes recorded high seed yield as compare to check PUSA-362. High Genotypic Coefficient of Variation and Phenotypic Coefficient of Variation was observed for seed yield, seed index, harvest index, number of pods per plant, number of effective pods per plant. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance as percent of mean was observed for seed yield, seed index, harvest index, biological yield, number of pods per plant and number of effective pods per plant. The correlation studies revealed that seed yield per plant was positively and significantly correlated with pod initiation, plant height, number of pods per plant, number of effective pods per plant, biological yield, harvest index. The path analysis indicated that harvest index was observed as maximum positive direct effect on seed yield per plant and thus, may be considered as useful traits for yield improvement of chickpea.