Stability analysis for grain yield and contributing traits in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

Abstract

Chickpea (Gicer arietinum L.) is an important pulse crops in India and Asia adapted to the drought prone semi arid tropical regions. In the present study, an attempt has been made to identify high yielding stable genotypes of chickpea, particularly for the harsh and erratic environment of Rajasthan that further adds to variation in the growing conditions of the crop. The phenotypic stability of 22 genotypes of chickpea including two released checks i.e., GNG-663 (Vardan) and GNG-469 (Samrat) was studied for grain yield and contributing traits under three environments. The genotypes included in the study were the advance and stable breeding lines developed from different set of crosses between parents of good agronomic base. The experiment was laid out in a randomized block design with three replication in three environments i.e., rainfed (sown on 28th October, seasonal rainfall 13.2 mm, no irrigation during the crop season), timely sown irrigated (11th November) and late sown irrigated (6th December) rabi 2001-02. Each genotype was sown in four rows plot of 4 meter length. The net plot size was 7.2 m2 and spacing between rows and plants with in rows were 30 and 10 cm, respectively. Observation for plant height, number of primary branches, number of secondary branches, 100-seed weight and number of pods per plant was recorded on ten randomly selected plants in each replications while days to 50% flowering, days to maturity and grain yield was recorded on whole plot basis. Components of G x E interaction and stability parameters were computed following Eberhart and Russel model [1].