Morphological Characterization and Evaluation of Mungbean (Vigna radiata (L) Wilczek) Genotypes in Western Tigray, Ethiopia

Abstract

The experiment was conducted to characterize and evaluate mung bean accessions, to identify diseases, shattering, lodging resistant and suitable for combine harvesting. The accessions sown in a plot area of 2.1 m by 5 m with 1 m, 1.5m between plots and blocks keeping inter and intra row spacing of 40 cm and 10 cm, respectively. 73 entries along with two checks summing up 75 genotypes evaluated at field condition for their yield and yield components characters during 2019 main cropping season using augmented RCBD design without replication. R-software were used to analyze different characters including the descriptive statistics and SPSS20 used to analyze clustering. Mean of different traits days to maturity (76.46±11.21,), shattering(0.93±0.14), lodging (2.71±2.03), root length(21.±5.54), root volume(201.05±43.76), pods/plant (16.81±6.38), nodule number( 16.22±1.96), Seed yield(10.64±4.01), seeds/pod (11.77±2.80) and 100sw(3.26±0.97) was recoded. The accessions recorded different range of parameters; nodule number (0 to71.75), root length (8 cm to 34.5), shattering (0 to 100), lodging (0% to 1-10%), number of seeds/pod (7 to 23), hundred seed weight (1.8 to 3.26 gram), root volume (4.71 to 230.46 CM) respectively this big variation among accessions of different traits helps to promote breeding programme in mung bean. The seed yield of genotypes ranged from ZURD01(3.88) to ILRI6831(19.79) qtha-1. Days to maturity was ranged from 61(ARKEBE) to 103(MEND01) after emergence. Three maturity groups; early (61 to 69days), medium (71 to 79 days) and late maturing (81 to 103days). Mean yield performance; cluster one had the highest mean yield (16.31qtha-1) followed by cluster two (12.43 qtha-1), cluster three (9.8), cluster four (6.65 qtha-1) and cluster five (1.21 qtha-1) respectively. The genotypes grouped in to three clusters based on their maturity and cluster one had the highest mean maturity days (91.74) followed by cluster two (75.97) and cluster three (66.37) respectively. The early, medium and late maturing genotypes recommended for moisture stress (350-500mm), optimum (600-800 mm) and high rain fall (900-2000 mm) areas respectively according to annual rain fall of the agro ecologies. Genotypes with high nodule number, high yielding, diseases resistance, better root length, shattering and lodging resistance will be important for variety development for mechanization, commercial production and further breeding programme.