Inheritance of seed yield and its components in chickpea (cicer arietinum)

Abstract

Present investigation was undertaken to unravel the genetics of seed related attributes in chickpea (Cicer arietinum) at Pulse Improvement Project, Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth, Rahuri. Three crosses (Phule G 96006 x Phule G 5, Phule G 96006 x Phule G 9426-2 and Phule G 5 x Phule G 9426-2) along with its parental seed, F2, BC1 and BC2 were put into generation mean analysis. The characters viz., days to maturity, plant height, branches per plant, pods per plant, harvest index and seed yield per plant were subjected to generation mean analysis to assess the gene effects controlling these traits. The analysis of variance revealed that significant differences among generations in most of the characters studied in all the three crosses, except branches per plant and plant height, indicating considerable variability in the experimental material. The scaling tests (A, B, C and D) indicated that appreciable amount of epistasis was present in different characters of three crosses under study. Generation mean analysis revealed that different gene effects were responsible for the inheritance of the same trait in different crosses and for different traits in the same cross. Hence, specific handling of individual cross in segregating generations would be advantageous for improvement of these traits

Keywords

• Chickpea
• Gene action
• Generation mean analysis