Study of Variability, Diversity and Association Analysis of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) Germplasm under Normal and Late Sown Condition of Chhattisgarh State

The experimental material comprised of 42 genotypes of chickpea grown under two different dates of sowing viz. 15^th November, 2005 and 1^st December, 2005. Results of variability analysis revealed sufficient variability for most of the characters studied viz. days to first flowering, days to 50 per cent flowering, days to maturity, 100 seed weight, biological yield, harvest index and seed yield per plant. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance as percentage over mean were observed for days to first flowering, days to maturity, pods per plant, seeds per pod, 100 seed weight and seed yield per plant under first date of sowing whereas, for days to first flowering, days to maturity and 100 seed weight under second date of sowing. Correlation coefficient analysis revealed that seed yield per plant was positively correlated with harvest index and biological yield under both dates of sowing. Path coefficient analysis of various characters towards seed yield revealed that the maximum positive direct effect on seed yield was exhibited by biological yield and harvest index under first and second date of sowing, respectively. Whereas, path coefficient analysis of various characters towards 100 seed weight revealed that the maximum positive direct effect on 100 seed weight was exhibited by biological yield and days to 50 per cent flowering under first and second date of sowing, respectively. Cluster analysis was carried out for both the environments separately and the genotypes were grouped into 6 and 3 clusters under first and second date of sowing, respectively. The intra and inter cluster distances were computed for all the clusters. The results indicated that the genotypes belonging to clusters possessing high inter cluster distance between them may be used in the future hybridization programmes for the development of high yielding chickpea genotypes.