Morphological characterization of Indian pea varieties

A total of 43 released Indian cultivars of pea (Pisum sativum L.) were grouped for several agro morphological descriptors. Most of the varieties belong to the category of large seed weight. ‘VL 3’, ‘Azad P 2’, ‘HUP 2’ and ‘JM 6’were of medium seed weight category whereas ‘B 22’ was in small seed weight group. Varieties were also classified on the basis of foliage colour. Three types of foliage colour, viz., light-green, green and darkgreen were observed in the varieties but most of them belonged to either green or dark green group except ‘Azad P 2’, ‘HUP 2’, and ‘IPF 99–25’ which depicted light green foliage colour. The pea varieties were largely of early to medium flowering except ‘DDR 23’, ‘DDR 27’, ‘Arkel’, ‘Azad P 3’, ‘Azad P 31’, ‘Ageta 6’, ‘VRP 5’, ‘VRP 6’, ‘VRP 22’, ‘B 22’, and ‘VL 42’ which belonged to extra early flowering category. In most of the varieties, leaflet was present except ‘HUDP 15’, ‘HFP 4’, ‘HFP 8909’, ‘KPMR 522’, ‘KPMR 144-1’, ‘KPMR 400’, ‘Jayanti’, ‘DDR 48’, ‘HUP 2’ and ‘Swati’. Considerable variability was observed in plant height. Most of the varieties were of short or long plant height except ‘IPFD 1–10’, ‘VL 3’, ‘LFP 48’, ‘DDR 23’, ‘DDR 48’, ‘Azad P 3’, ‘Azad P 31’, ‘VRP 7’ and ‘VRPMR 9’ which belonged to medium group category. Seed surface was smooth in most of the varieties except ‘Arkel’, ‘Azad P 1’, ‘Azad P 3’, ‘Azad P 31’, ‘Ageta 6’, ‘VRP 6’, ‘VRP 7’, ‘VRP 22’, ‘Azad P 2’, ‘Azad P 5’, ‘VRPMR 9’ and ‘Azad P 4’ with wrinkled seeds.