Variation for Agro-Morphological Traits among Kabuli Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) Genotypes

The objectives of this study were to evaluate genetic variation among kabuli chickpea genotypes and to determine the relationships among agronomic traits with seed yield. Field experiments were conducted during the long and short rain seasons of 2013 using alpha lattice design in triplicate. Data on agro-morphological traits were recorded using descriptors for chickpea and analysed using SAS 2013 and Genstat 2014. There were highly significant (p < 0.001) variations among genotypes and genotype by environment interactions for all studied traits. The top five high yielding genotypes were ICCV 05315, ICC 13461, ICCV 07313, ICC 13764 and ICCV 00302. Genotypes ranking for most agronomic traits varied across environments which indicated a crossover type of genotype by environment interactions. Evaluated genotypes were polymorphic for six qualitative traits. Seed yield ha-1 was positively and significantly (p < 0.05) correlated with biomass yield ha-1, pods plant-1, plant canopy width and secondary branches plant-1. These characters could be used for indirect selection of high yielding genotypes. The first principal component explained 57% of the total variation and was associated with days to 50% flowering and podding, plant canopy width, plant height, number of primary and secondary branches plant-1, days to 75% maturity, number of pods plant-1 and biomass yield ha-1 as positive contributors. The documented information on genetic variation and association of agronomic traits with seed yield can be exploited to devise suitable breeding strategies and chickpea germplasm conservation.