Principal Component and Genetic Diversity Analysis for Seed Yield and Its Related Components in the Genotypes of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

Abstract

Background: The seed yield of chickpea can be improved by selection of superior genotypes on the basis of different yield and yield component traits. These genotypes exclusively utilize in breeding programs. Yield is a complex trait which is affected by several factors, hence, a well-known technique known as principal component analysis was used to identify and minimize the number of traits for effective selection. To obtain efficient recombinants, the identified component traits need to be combined from diverse parents through recombination breeding followed by selection of transgressive segregants. Hence, the present study is envisaged to measure the genetic diversity among genotypes of chickpea.Methods: The experimental material comprised of 40 chickpea genotypes evaluated in randomized block design with three replications. The experimental unit was four rows per plot with 4 m length and spacing between row to row and plant to plant maintained as 30 x 10 cm. NPK (20:40:00) fertilizers was applied as basal doses. The data were recorded for each genotype on nine quantitative traits as per standard methods. Descriptive statistics and PCA analysis was performed by using the statistical package SPSS 16.0 version and cluster analysis was done using the Wards method of hierarchical clustering technique.Result: Out of nine PCs only three PCs exhibited more than 1.0 Eigen value and showed about 73.4% variability. PC1 contributed 28.6% of the total variation and correlated with days to flowering, days to maturity, plant height, first pod height, seeds per pod and number of pods per plant while PC2 explained 21.00% of the total variation and dominated by plant height, first pod height and seed yield. PC3 explained an additional 13.00% of the total variation and dominated by primary branches per plant. Genotype commonly found in more PC, were BG 4016, IPCB 2015-165, IPC 2011-247, GNG2459 and RKG 19-4. Hierarchical clustering technique grouped 40 genotypes into two main clusters (A and B) and nine sub clusters. The present investigation depicted that the chickpea germplasm displayed considerable genetic diversity for most of the traits under consideration.