Variation of Harvest Index in Several Crosses of Chickpea (Cicer arietinumL.)

Abstract

Harvest index was studied in F2 generations of six chickpea crosses. The parental lines involved in the crosses represented a fairly wide range of character expression for days to maturity, pods per plant, biological yield per plant, seed yield per plant and harvest index. Means, ranges and variances of F2 populations suggested that the magnitude of variation was not proportionate to the degree of diversity of the parents involved in a cross, and the parents behaved differently in releasing variability for harvest index. Estimates of heritability were low to high (36.29–91.01%), whereas those of genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV; 16.06–92.38%) and genetic advance (15.55–84.58%) were moderate to high in the populations studied. However, moderate-to-high magnitude of heritability coupled with high genetic advance and high GCV in four out of six crosses indicated that gene action governing expression of harvest index was largely additive in nature and improvement in this trait is possible through selection. Association between harvest index and seed yield per plant was inconsistent. Usefulness of selecting for harvest index as a measure of yielding efficiency, particularly in early generation, is discussed.