Genetic variability and interrelationship among qualitative and quantitative traits in mungbean

The qualitative and quantitative characters in mungbean vary significantly across genotypes and environments. Morphological and biochemical characterization were carried out in 44 mungbean genotypes during kharif 2009, 2010 and 2011, under rainfed conditions. The tested genotypes exhibited significant to highly significant differences with respect to all the morphological and biochemical characters studied. Five genotypes were recorded with > 3% fat, 16 with > 3% fibre, four with > 5% ash, six with > 29% protein and eight with > 65% carbohydrate contents. Fat and fibre contents were recorded with significantly higher heritability (> 90%) with corresponding PCV and GCV (> 15%) coupled with > 35% genetic advance, which validates that these characters are greatly influenced not only by the additive gene effect but also by greater proportion of heritable variation. No consistency in fat and fibre contents vis-à-vis seed yield indicated that they can be increased or decreased without detrimental effect on seed yield. However, ash and protein contents had negative correlation with nine out of 10 morphological traits, indicating that the genotypes with high protein or ash contents are not essentially high seed yielding as well. Whereas, carbohydrate contents had highly significant and positive correlations with eight out of 10 morphological traits, suggesting its usefulness as an excellent selection marker for improving seed yield.