Exploiting the natural variation and inter-relationship among medium maturity Pigeonpea [Cajanus cajan(L.) Millsp.] genotypes

Abstract

The present investigation was conducted for character association and their causal effect of quantitatively inherited characters with 21 genotypes of pigeonpea. The genotypic and phenotypic coefficient of variation exhibited high for secondary branches per plant (21.07 and 21.94%, respectively), while low was found for days to maturity (3.71 and 3.82 %, respectively) and days to 50% flowering (4.82 and 5.25 %, respectively). Heritability coupled with genetic advance also observed high for secondary branches per plant (92.26 %). The seed yield showed highly significant and positive correlation with plant height (0.806 and 0.619) at both genotypic as well as phenotypic level, respectively. The path coefficient exhibited the highest positive direct effect of plant height (0.871) followed by primary branches per plant (0.423) and days to 50% flowering (0.171) on seed yield, at genotypic level. The highest positive direct effect on seed yield was exhibited by plant height (0.595) followed by primary branches per plant (0.235) and 100-seed weight (0.190), at phenotypic level. The genotypes viz., BAUPP 1610, AKTM 1637, BDN 716, ICPL 15072, WRG 327 and GJP 1820 were found promising in terms of yield and its attributing traits.

Keywords

• pigeonpea
• genotypic and phenotypic coefficient of variation
• heritability
• genetic advance
• correlation and path analysis