Association Analysis of Yield Contributing Traits of Chickpea Genotypes under High Temperature Condition

Thirty elite genotypes of chickpea were investigated to assess the presence of genetic variability as well as association study among the yield contributing traits under terminal heat stress. To find out variability ranges, various quantitative traits were selected. The results showed that filled pods/plant and plant yield possessed high heritability, and total number of pods/plant showed a highly significant positive correlation with total number of seeds/plant and plant yield respectively. Similarly, filled pods/plant also had a highly significant positive correlation with plant yield and number of seeds/plant. Additionally, considering yield, the following genotypes Katila (1958kg/ha), Vaibhav (1777kg/ha), Avrodhi (1691kg/ha) showed higher yield in comparison to the check ICC4958 (1569kg/ha). Further, all genotypes were clustered into 4 groups using hierarchical cluster analysis. Considering, principal component analysis (PCA), 77% of the genetic variability explained by PC1, PC2 and PC3. The major traits accountable for the diversity in the first principal component PC1 were total number of seeds/plant and total number of pods/plant; while in PC2 days to 50% flowering and in PC3 plant yield. Moreover, graphical representation of component score (PC1 and PC2) at 95% prediction ellipse indicated that RSG931, Annegiri, RSG888, PANTG114, ICC1356, ICC4567, ICC5912, and PUSA362 genotypes are genetically more diverse. Therefore, this work may give the opportunity to exploit the genetic variability for designing heat tolerant cultivar to accelerate the crop improvement programme.