Genetic diversity for seed yield traits and micronutrient content in recombinant inbred lines of mungbean [Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek]

Abstract

Micronutrient malnutrition is recognized as a massive and rapidly growing health issue as major emphasis was laid upon crop productivity improvement with little concern to nutritional value. Considering the diverse growing conditions of mungbean, its varied food products and their ease in digestion, emphasis on development of new mungbean varieties with high zinc and iron content will be on after note option to improve the nutritional status of vegetarian population. Seventy mungbean Recombinant Inbred Lines developed from two diverse genotypes i.e. MH 2-15 (low Zn and Fe) and ML 776 (high Zn and Fe content) were grown along with their both parents and three popular checks (MH 1-25, MH 421 and MH 318) in untreated and treated with (Zn and Fe) environments to study genetic divergence among these. Genotypes performed significantly better under treated environment than the untreated condition for traits viz., plant height, number of branches plant-1, 100-seed weight, seed yield plot-1, biological yield plot-1 and zinc and iron content in seeds. Thirteen variables were reduced to four principal factors through principal factor analysis explaining 77.48 and 74.33 per cent variability, in untreated and treated environments respectively. The first principal factor (PF) showed high loadings for six yield variables and PF 3 ascribed for Zn and Fe content in seeds. Eight clusters containing one to 30 and three to 23 genotypes under untreated and treated environments, respectively were formed using hierarchical cluster analysis. Inter-cluster distance was observed maximum between clusters VII and VIII in both the environments.