Assessment of genotypic variation in soybean (Glycine max)

Forty-two soybean genotypes were evaluated for their agro-morphological traits and the extent of genetic variability. Analysis of variance and mean performance for yield and its components revealed significant differences among all the genotypes for all the characters. Correlation was also found significant with yield and its component traits. The path analysis indicated that number of clusters (0.402) and number of pods (0.313) had shown highest direct effect on grain yield and thus selection based on these traits will be quite fruitful. Cluster diagram based on agro-morphological traits proposed two major clusters. The experimental data revealed that 3 principal components having greater than one eigenvalues contributed 82.66% of the total variation. Number of pods (0.508), number of clusters (0.506), number of branches (0.367), plant height (0.33) and days to flowering (0.360) were major contributors to PC1. Yield per ha (0.733) and seed weight (0.403) had contributed more positively to PC2.