Selection for High Yielding and Stemphylium Blight Resistant Lentil (Lens culinaris Medikus) Genotype based on Principle Component and Selection Indices

Lentil (Lens culinaris medikus.) is one of the most important nutritious rabi pulse crops in. The fungal pathogen Stemphylium botryosum, which causes stemphylium blight, has gained attention recently and is responsible for 62% of crop loss in many countries, including India. This current study was conducted to assess the lentil germplasm in preparation for a future breeding project, taking into account the crop’s relevance in relation to the disease’s severity as well as a number of other desired variables like yield and quality attributes.

The study was undertaken in the Instructional Farm of UBKV, Pundibari during the rabi season of 2019–20 and 2020–21 with forty lentil germplasm to select distinguished high yielding genotype for resistance against Stemphylium blight. The field experiment was conducted by following by alpha lattice design with three replications. Statistical analysis was carried out using PB Tools v. 1.3 software.

Principle component analysis based selection indexing were performed considering 20% selection intensity and all the 18 traits under study were considered to compute selection indices, viz., days to 50% flowering, plant height, days to 90% maturity, primary branches plant^-1, secondary branches plant^-1, pods plant^-1, seeds pod^-1, pod weight plant^-1, 100 seed weight, yield plant^-1, harvest index, area under disease progress curve, change in phenol, change in OD phenol, polyphenol oxidase, seed iron, seed zinc and seed protein content in matured seeds. The genotype IC241061 was identified with the highest smith index score which could be used in future for resistance breeding.