Evaluation and genetic analysis of common bean genotypes (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) at Dibatie and Mandura, Northwestern Ethiopia

Assessing and understanding the variations existing in crops due to genetic composition and environmental variability is very important in order to exploit the genetic constitution of crop plants. To this aim, variability measures such as phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) and genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) are commonly used. Heritability and genetic advance are major concerns for common bean to identify important traits for common bean genetic improvement. The field experiment was conducted at Mandura and Dibatie research substations working with sixteen genotypes of the common bean during 2017/2018 in lattice design with three replications to evaluate the performance of common bean genotypes and estimate the genetic variability. Heritability and genetic advance were estimated in relation to yield and its component traits for future breeding programs. Combined analysis of variance across locations revealed highly significant variations among genotypes for all traits under study. The PCV ranged from 3.36% for days to flowering to 15.91% for a number of pods per plant while the GCV value ranged from 0.75% for days to flowering to 13.74% for the number of pods per plant. Broad sense heritability values ranged from 5.00% for days to flowering to 84.61% for a hundred seed weight. Generally, the result of the study showed that significant genetic variability among tested genotypes and a simple selection for effective improvement of these traits. Keywords: common bean, genetic variability, genetic advance, heritability