Assessment of Variability and Genetic Parameters in Agro-Physiological Traits of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) under Rainfed Condition

An experiment was conducted during rabi season of 2017-18 to estimate  the genetic parameters of variation including heritability and genetic advance for agro-physiological characters viz., days to flower initiation, days to 50 per cent flowering, days to maturity, plant height, branches per plant, pods per plant, seeds per plant, biological yield per plant (g), seed yield per plant (g), 100-seed weight (g), root length (cm), relative water content and harvest index (%) in 20 genotypes of chickpea. High phenotypic coefficient of variance (PCV) and genotypic coefficient of variance (GCV) were observed for characters viz., number of branches per plant, seeds per plant and 100-seed weight. The magnitude of phenotypic coefficient of variance and their corresponding genotypic coefficient of variance for all the characters were observed in good agreement reflecting the narrow range of environmental influence in the manifestation of the characters. High heritability was recorded for number of branches per plant, 100-seed weight, seeds per plant, pods per plant and biological yield per plant.  High heritability combined with high genetic advance was observed for seeds per plant, pods per plant and 100-seed weight which indicated that these traits were governed by additive gene effects and phenotypic selection would be effective in early generations for these characters.