Genetic Diversity Studies in Field Pea (Pisum sativum var. arvense L.) Germplasm

The present study entitled “Genetic diversity Studies in Field Pea Germplasm (Pisum sativum var. arvense L.)” was carried out to estimate the genetic variability for yield and yield contributing traits, study the relationship between yield and yield attributing traits on seed yield and its component traits and to assess direct and indirect of yield attributing traits on seed yield. The experimental material was consisting of 41 Field Pea genotypes. The experiment was laid out in Randomized complete block design with three replications. The observations were recorded on five randomly selected plants from each treatment and replication for 12 different quantitative traits Days to 50% flowering, Days to 50% pod setting, Plant height (cm), Number of branches per plant, Number of Pods per plant, Number of seeds per pod, Pod length (cm) days to maturity, biological yield (gm), Harvest Index, Seed Index (gm), Seed yield per plant (gm). Based on the mean performance, high seed yield per plant were identified for the genotype zimndal (11.59) followed by Matar-23 (10.76). The higher phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variations were observed for number of primary branches per plant (33.92 & 24.56), seed yield per plant (29.84 & 25.67) and number of seeds per pod (28.61 & 22.64). High heritability coupled with high genetic advance as percent of mean was observed for plant height (84.43 & 40.55), days to 50% flowering (77.30 & 34.92) and pod length (71.55 & 32.55). Based on Mahalanobis D2 values 41 genotypes grouped into 8 clusters. Among 8 clusters cluster I had more number of genotypes (25) followed by cluster II (8 genotypes), cluster VIII (3 genotypes). The maximum intra cluster distance was observed in cluster VIII (10.26) followed by cluster II (8.59) and cluster I (7.72). The highest inter cluster distance observed between cluster I and cluster VI (24.07) followed by cluster I and cluster IV (22.25), cluster I and cluster III (21.41). Therefore, genotypes present in these clusters may be used as parents to produce the transgressive segregants. The cluster IV (12.57) had significant and higher cluster mean for seed yield per plant. The trait number of primary branches per plant (25.12%) had maximum contribution towards to genetic divergence followed by harvest index (21.95%), biological yield per plant (19.39%), seed yield per plant (19.15%).