Heritability and genetic advance quantitative characters in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

Chickpea production in Iran is less than half of world average yield. Genetic studies on yield and yield component may provide to select an effective breeding method for enhancing seed yield productivity. The current study was undertaken to estimate genetic parameters of yield and yield component of P1، P2، F1، F2، BC1P1، BC1P2 from a cross between chickpea varieties kabuli type ICCV2 and desi type JG62 and also P1، P2، F1، F2 a cross between Bivanij (kabuli type) and ICCV96029 (desi type) in ICRISAT and Sararood station during 1998-1999، 1999-2000 and 2003-2004. High heritability along with high genetic advance for 100-seed weight، leaf weight and specific leaf weight indicated the substantial contribution of additive genetic advance for the expression of these characters. Genotypic variation for number of days to first flower، number of days to first pod، number of secondary and primary branches per plant، plant width، plant height، number of seeds per pod and number of days to maturity was probably due to nonadditive gene effects. Both additive and nonadditive gene effects had important role for the expression of number of pods per plant، number of seeds per plant and seed yield per plant.