Genetic Divergence on Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) Genotypes Grown under Late Sown Conditions

In the current experiment, 102 chickpea.germplasm showed wide range of variation for various characters were evaluated during Rabi 2017-18 along with BG 372, Udai and Pant G 186 as checks varieties in Augmented Block Design at Agronomy Research Farm of Acharya Narendra Deva University of Agriculture and Technology, Narendra Nagar (Kumarganj), Ayodhya (U.P.). The observations were recorded on 11 quantitative characters viz., days to 50 per cent flowering, days to maturity, primary branches per plant, secondary branches per plant, plant height (cm), pods per plant, seeds per pod, biological yield per plant (g), seed yield per plant (g), harvest index (%) and 100-seed weight (g). A statistical investigation of each character's genetics yielded a number of results. Higher seed yield per plant was generated by genotypes GJG 1416, followed by BG 256, GJG 1416, PhuleG0819. Seed yield per plant had positive and extremely significant associations with secondary branches per plant, pods per plant, seeds per pod, biological yield per plant, harvest index, and 100-seed weight. Primary branches per plant were shown to have positive significant associations with seed output per plant, where as plant height was determined to be non-significant. It showed a poor, non-significant correlation with the number of days until 50% blooming and the number of days till maturity. Biological yield per plant (g) and the Harvest index were found to be significant direct components of seed yield per plant by path analysis. The traits mentioned above that were significant direct and indirect components ought to be taken into account when creating a chickpea selection strategy that would produce high yielding varieties. The 11 clusters formed in divergence analysis contained genotypes of heterogeneous origin there by indicating no parallelism between genetic and geographic diversity. In this context, the maximum inter-cluster distance was recorded between cluster X and XI (12.201) followed by cluster III and XI (11.254), cluster VI and XI (11.125) and cluster VII and XI (10.875). Therefore, crosses between members of cluster separated by high inter-cluster distances are likely to throw desirable segregants.