Generation mean analysis for seed yield and its contributing traits in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

Abstract

Generation mean analysis study in chickpea was undertaken to estimate the gene action operating in the inheritance of yield and its components. Six basic generations viz., P1, P2, F1, F2, BC1 and BC2 of two crosses, namely ICCV 2 × PKV Harita and ICCV 2 × HC 5 were studied. Joint scaling test was applied to test the adequacy of additive-dominance model for the traits under investigation. Significant χ2 values indicated the presence of higher order interactions except for days to maturity in ICCV 2 × PKV Harita cross and number of primary branches per plant and number of pods per plant in ICCV 2 × HC 5 cross. The dominance component was higher in magnitude than additive component for all the characters studied along with duplicate type of epistasis in most of the cases. Both, additive, and non-additive gene action contribute significantly in the inheritance of various quantitative characters in chickpea. Moderate to high broad sense heritability and low narrow sense heritability was noticed for most of the traits studied. Further low to moderate genetic advance coupled with low genetic advance as per cent of mean was detected for most of the characters studied indicating the great influence of environmental effects. Hence, the biparental approach or inter-mating of desired segregants in early generations followed by delayed selection would be ineffective.