Agronomic Characteristics and Genetic Diversity in 17 Chickpea Genotype

In other to evaluate genetic diversity, heritability and relationships between morphological and physiological traits with economic yield, an experiment was conducted on 17 chickpea genotypes for two years (2004-2005) in the research stations of Kermanshah, Lorestan and Ilam in the framework of completely randomized block design with 4 replications. Various statistical methods including: statistical parameters, genetic parameters, correlation between characters, multiple regression, path analysis and principal component analysis were calculated. Among the agronomic characters, grain yield and days number to % 50 maturities with CV of %41.35 and %4.22 indicated maximum and minimum coefficient of variation, respectively. Broadsense heritability ranged from %10.81 for primary branch numbers to %83.57 for plant height. Broadsense heritability for plant height, 100 seed weight, days number to %50 flowering and number of seed per plant were higher than those of the other characters. Stepwise regression for selection of traits related to economic yield indicated that seed number per plant and 100 seed weight explained 96.50 percent of total variation. The results of path analysis revealed that number of seed per plant and 100 seed weight with path coefficients of 0.947 and 0.262 had the highest direct effect on seed yield, respectively. Principal component analysis detected 2 components, which justified 69 percent of the total phenotypic variation of grain yield.