Evaluation of some quantitative and qualitative characteristics of advanced white chickpea lines for spring dry land cultivation

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is considered as the third most important type of legume in the world. This plant is considered as a low-cost crop in the agricultural systems of semi-arid tropical regions and is important because of its ability to adapt to a wide range of environmental and soil conditions such as marginal lands. This research has been carried out with the aim of obtaining high-yielding lines with desirable quantitative and qualitative agricultural traits such as standing and grassy plant type (to facilitate mechanized harvesting), grain coarseness and early maturity compared to the control cultivars.

In order to achieve the superior line or lines in terms of grain yield under dry conditions, 12 advanced dry white chickpea lines obtained from the breeding programs of the Maragheh Rain Research Institute, along with two control varieties named Samin and the local variety Jam in the form of The statistical design of completely randomized blocks was investigated in 4 repetitions at Ekbatan station of Hamedan province agricultural and natural resources research center in 1400 and phenological and morphological traits were measured.

The results of analysis of variance showed that there was a significant difference at the 1% level between the lines for all traits, except the number of days to 50% germination. The greatest variation was observed between the traits of one hundred seeds, the number of diseased branches, the average number of pods per plant, the height of the plant and the number of primary branches. There was a positive and significant relationship between the number of pods per plant, the number of secondary branches and the total weight of seeds in each plot, and there was a negative and significant relationship between the above traits and the traits of days to germination, flowering and pods. Broad heritability for days to 50% flowering, plant height, days to pod formation and full maturity were 87, 78, 81 and 73%, respectively, which indicates low environmental effects on these traits. The highest height of the plant belonged to line 1 (45.50 cm) and due to the general heritability above 50% of the plant height, it is possible to breed from line 1 as a parent in the next programs in order to produce grassy varieties suitable for mechanized harvesting of seeds. Line 7, despite the low height of the plant (33.25 cm), was superior to other lines in terms of the number of primary and secondary branches and as a result the highest number of pods per plant (18 pods). Line 7 also had one of the highest values of 100 seed weight (32.02 grams), which made it have a relatively high seed yield (520.35 grams).

The results of the present research indicated the presence of significant genetic diversity for the traits of hundred seed weight, number of diseased branches, average number of pods per plant, plant height and number of primary branches, which provides the possibility of using the existing diversity in the next stages of chickpea breeding. High values of broad heritability for days up to 50% of flowering, plant height, days until pods and full ripening indicate the low environmental effects on these traits and therefore these traits can be exploited in selection processes in the next generations. Also, if mechanized harvesting of chickpeas is not desired, Line 7 can be one of the suitable options for planting in Hamedan province or regions with similar climate.