PERFORMANCE OF FUSARIUM WILT RESISTANT CHICKPEA (CICER ARIETIUM L.) GENOTYPES DEVELOPED THROUGH MABC

Fusarium wilt is the major constraint in chickpea cultivation. Developing wilt resistant genotype is the most effective means of wilt management in chickpea. MABC approach was used to develop wilt resistant genotypes. Experiment was carried out to estimate genetic parameters among 10 MABC lines of chickpea including three standard checks across three locations Viz., Gulbarga (L-1), Bidar (L-2) and Dharwad (L-3). Analysis of variance for mean sum of squares for important quantitative traits such as plant height (cm), number of primary branches per plant, number of pods per plant, grain yield per plant (g), 100 seed weight (g) and net plot yield (kg) revealed significant differences between the genotypes across the locations, except for plant height in L-3 indicating the existence of considerable amount of variability among the genotypes. This was evident by larger difference between minimum and maximum range value for traits under study across the locations. Narrow difference between phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) and genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) was observed for all traits except number of pods per plant in L-1 indicating negligible influence of external environment on the expression of traits. High heritability coupled high genetic advance expressed over per cent mean (GAM) was recorded for grain yield per plant, 100 seed weight and net plot yield in L-1, 100 seed weight and net plot yield in L-2 indicating preponderance of additive gene action, simple selection could be effective for improvement of these traits. Overall the performance of the two MABC lines SA-1 and SA-2 were better across all the three locations.