Wide hybridization for widening genetic base in Chickpea

The present investigation was carried out in Randomized Block Design during rabi season of 2005-06 with 25 genotypes derived from wide and intervarietal crosses and 5 checks of chickpea at Crop Research Center of G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand. The observations were recorded on days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, plant height, primary branches/, plant width, pods/ plant, seeds/pod, 100 seed weight and grain yield/plant to study genotypic, phenotypic variability, genetic advance, character association, genetic divergence and genetic relationship using SDS -PAGE. The ANOVA revealed highly significant genetic differences among genotypes for all the characters studied. High values of C.V. were observed for grain yield/plant, 100 seed weight, primary braches/plant and seeds/ pod. Amongst 25 genotypes only PG055 and PG053 were significantly superior for plant width and grain yield/ plant, respectively. Analysis of genotypic character association study revealed highly significant and positive association of days to maturity with plant height (0.496), seeds/ pod and days to 50% flowering (0.491), primary branches/plant and pods/ plant