Agro-Morphological Exploitation of Genetic Diversity and Multivariate Analysis of Indigenous Chickpea (Cicer Arietinum L.) Germplasm

Abstract

For most of the examined variables, there was significant variation between the germplasm lines. Independent of their breeding locations, the genotypes under study were grouped into seven clusters by genetic diversity analysis. Cluster I contained the most genotypes, 24 and the fewest in clusters V and VII, which were solitary. In contrast, cluster II held 10 genotypes, cluster III had 7, and clusters IV and VI could each hold 4 genotypes. Clusters III and VI had the greatest inter-cluster distance, which indicated that their genotypes had the greatest genetic diversity. According to principal component analysis (PCA), Four of the first fourteen PCs had eigenvalues greater than one. PC 1 alone accounted for the highest variance of 33.1%, followed by PC 2 with 21.7%. The outcomes of this investigation might be used as a foundation for defining and implementing subsequent chickpea breeding initiatives. Seed Yield, Number of Secondary Branches, Harvest Index, and biological yield, test weight, number of seeds per pod, and number of filled pods per plant were all found to be variable in biplot.