GENETIC DIVERSITY AND CHARACTER ASSOCIATION IN YIELD AND YIELD CONTRIBUTING TRAITS OF YARD LONG BEAN (Vigna unguiculata L.)

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted at the experimental farm of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University with yard long bean genotypes during „Kharif’ season (June 2016 to September 2016). Ten characters were studied to find out the genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance, correlation coefficient analysis, path coefficient analysis and genetic divergence. The genotypes were significantly variable for all of the characters studied. High genotypic and phenotypic coefficient of variation was observed for number of pods per plant (28.00% and 28.46%) and pod yield per plant (27.87% and 29.37%). Accordingly high heritability accompanied with high genetic advance in percent of mean in number of pod per plant (96.78% and 56.74%), pod yield per plant (90.01% and 54.46%), pod diameter (64.39% and 26.2%) and hundred seed weight (91.21% and 23.37%) suggested that these characters would be considered for varietal selection. The correlation studies revealed that pod yield per plant showed significant positive correlation with no. of seed per pod (0.932 and 0.767), no. of pods per plant (0.974 and 0.970) and significantly negative correlation with dates to marketable harvest (-0.537 and -0.503) at genotypic and phenotypic level. These characters would be considered for the selection a good variety. Path analysis revealed days to first flowering (0.502), days to maturity (1.269), number of pods per plant (0.600), pod weight (0.185) and number of seeds per pod (0.143) had direct positive effect on pod yield per plant, indicating these traits are the main contributors to pod yield per plant. The studied genotypes were clustered into 3 groups with highest of inter-cluster distance between clusters I and III (79.856). This indicates diverse genotypes from these two clusters, if involved in hybridization may produce a wide spectrum of segregating population while the lowest inter-cluster distance was observed between cluster II and III (34.640).