Evaluation of Field Pea (Pisum sativum L.) Genotypes for Yield and Yield Attributing Traits at High Land of Arsi, South East Ethiopia

The production and productivity of field pea in Ethiopia is constrained by low-yielding potential of land race, susceptibility to diseases like powdery mildew and Ascochyta blight/spot as well as a biotic stresses like frost and soil acidity. The field experiment was conducted in 2018/19 main cropping season at two locations using simple lattice design to evaluate the genetic variability and performance of forty nine field pea genotypes for yield ad yield attributing traits. The combined/pooled / analysis of variance revealed highly significant (P≤0.01) to significant (P≤0.05) differences among genotypes observed for all traits under study except for number of seeds pod-1. The seed yield ranged from 1955 to 5997 kg ha-1 with a mean of 3803 kg across the two locations. Two genotypes PDFPT-BEK and P-313-053 were relatively high yielder over the two locations. The genotypic (GCV) and phenotypic (PCV) coefficient of variation (GCV) ranged from (1.07%) to (22.40%) and (1.22%) to (28.18% for days to maturity and grain yield, respectively for combined analyses. The PCV values were relatively greater than GCV in magnitude for all traits, of which significantly higher PCV than GCV values observed for number of pods per plant, Stand count, powdery mildew and ascocayta blight, but insignificant differences between PCV and GCV values observed for days to flowering, days to maturity, plant height, 1000 seed weight, and grain yield. Broad sense heritability ranged from 23.66% to 90.73%. The genetic advance as percentage of mean (GAM) varied from 1.92% to 36.73%. Higher heritability (H2) coupled with high GAM observed for grain yield per ha and Higher heritability (H2) coupled with Moderate or relatively high value of GAM in plant height and seed size. Therefore, improvement of these traits could be done through selection of genotypes based on the phenotypic performance.