Breeding Chickpea

The present investigation entitled ¿Genetic divergence studies in advance breeding lines of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) under rainfed conditions¿ was conducted at Advanced Center for Rainfed Agriculture (ACRA), SKUAST-J, Rakh Dhiansar, Jammu during Rabi 2017-18 to assess the nature and extent of genetic variability, association and diversity among 22 advance breeding lines (F7:8) of chickpea. The observations were recorded on days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, plant height, number of primary branches / plant, number of secondary branches / plant, number of pods / plant, number of seeds / pod, biological yield / plant, seed yield / plant, harvest index, test weight, protein content, proline content, chlorophyll content, relative water content, relative growth rate and crop growth rate. The data on all the characters studied under rainfed conditions of Jammu were subjected to statistical analysis and the following conclusions were drawn: The analysis of variance revealed highly significant differences for all the characters under study except days to maturity where it was significant at p=0.05. This indicated abundant amount of genetic variability for these characters.