Studies on genetic variability and inter-relationship among yield contributing characters in pigeonpea grown under rainfed lowland of eastern region of India

Abstract

Genetic variability and interrelationship for yield and yield contributing characters among 38 genotypes of pigeonpea [Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp] were studied in present investigation for twelve characters. The genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV), phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV), heritability (h2b), genetic advance (Ga) and correlation for yield and its attributes were computed. The minimum difference between PCV and GCV values for all characters indicated minimum environmental influence. Moderate to high PCV and GCV were recorded for days to fifty percent flowering (DFF) (27.41, 25.64), number of pods per plant (30.69, 2.06), number of seed (19.39, 18.23), grain yield (34.13, 29.42) and straw yield (26.24, 25.03). High heritability and genetic advance was observed for number of pods (0.94, 27.14), plant height (0.90, 21.43), test weight, days to maturity (0.84,23.02) and primary and secondary branches per plants (0.90, 11.32) which indicated that these traits are controlled by additive gene action and emerged as ideal traits for improvement through selection. The characters viz. DFF, test weight, pod length and number of primary branches showed high heritability along with moderate or low genetic advance and couldbe improved by inter mating superior genotypes of population developed from combination breeding. Out of 38, eight genotypes viz., ICPL 87 (3.72 t/ha), Manak (3.59 t/ha), BSMR-736 (3.67 t/ha), BSMR-853 (3.36 t/ha), MAL-13 (3.15 t/ ha), GC-11-39 (3.17 t/ha), NDA-1 (2.92 t/ha) and Virsa Bahar (2.81 t/ha) were found promising for yield and yield contributing traits as they had shown more test weight, number of pods per plant, number of seed per pod and harvest index.