Evaluation of Chickpea (<i>Cicer arietinum</i> L.) Genotypes for Quality Seedlings

Abstract

A study was conducted to evaluate 100 chickpea genotypes to explore their genetic diversity in respect of emergence and growth attributes. A high genotypic variation was observed in the characters studied. The highest positive correlation corresponded to the root mass and total plant biomass of the seedlings. Seedling biomass production was highly subjective to seedling vigor. Using discriminant function analysis, the first two functions contributed 46.2 and 39.0%, and altogether 85.2% of the variability among the genotypes. Function 1 was positively related to dry weight of root and total plants. The character with the greatest weight on function 2 was seedling emergence rate. The total dry weight of seedlings played the most dominant role in explaining the maximum variance in the genotypes. The genotypes were grouped into six clusters. Each cluster had specific seedling characteristics and the clusters 5 and 6 were closely related and clearly separated from clusters 1 and 4 for their higher amount of root and total biomass production, and vigorous seedlings, where as, the genotypes in cluster 2 and 3 were intermediate. The genotypes in cluster 5 followed by cluster 6 appeared to be important resources for selecting and developing chickpea variety.

Keywords: Chickpea; genotypes; seedling; quality

DOI: 10.3329/agric.v8i2.7584

The Agriculturists 8(2): 108-116 (2010)