Genetic Diversity Analysis of Chickpea Genotypes (Cicer arietinum L.) for Seed Yield and Morpho-genetic Traits

Background: Based on D2 analysis 53 chickpea genotypes were grouped into seven clusters. Among the VII clusters, cluster I consists of 30 genotypes forming the largest cluster followed by cluster II with 16 genotypes, cluster VII with three genotypes and cluster III, IV, V and VI with one genotype each. Inter cluster distance were found to higher than intra cluster distance which depicted wide genetic diversity among the chickpea genotypes under study. Contribution of various characters towards expression of total genetic divergence indicated that seed yield (27.77%) contributed maximum (24.74%) followed by biological yield and number of pods per plant (20.43%). The clustering pattern of genotype demonstrated that clustering does not follow any particular cluster pattern with respect to origin. The pattern of cluster analysis of the first principal component had the largest eigenroot 4.18 per cent of total variation followed by 3.53, 2.91, 2.02, 1.45, 1.26 and 1.15 from second to seven principal components. The eigenroot of first principal component accounted for 19.91 per cent of total variation followed by second to seven principal components which accounted for 16.82, 13.84, 9.62, 6.90, 5.99 and 5.48 per cent of total variations present in the genotypes.Methods: The study was carried out at Pulses Research Sub-Station (PRSS), Samba and Advanced Center for Rain-fed Agriculture (ACRA), Rakh Dhiansar during Rabi seasons 2017-18 and 2018-19. The experimental material comprising of 48 chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) genotypes along with 5 checks were evaluated in augmented block design.Result: The genotypes of cluster II, V and VII had highest inter-cluster distances as well as higher cluster means for most of the yield component traits indicating that these genotypes were most diverse can be used as parents in hybridization programme of chickpea breeding. The variation present in the chickpea genotypes under study can be exploited through selection and hybridization among identified genotypes for breeding high yielding chickpea genotypes.