GENETIC DIVERSITY ANALYSIS AND CHARACTER ASSOCIATION IN YIELD AND YIELD CONTRIBUTING TRAITS OF MUNGBEAN (Vigna radiata L.)

Abstract

The present research was undertaken to determine the genetic variability, correlation among different yield contributing characters of mungbean (Vigna radiata L.). The experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. The research was done based on 33 genotypes collected from Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute, considering eight quantitative characters during Kharif season from March to June, 2017 in research farm of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University. The analysis of variance showed significant variation in all the traits studied. The phenotypic variances were greater than the genotypic variances with little differences in all traits except plant height, number of branches per plant and pods per plant. High heritability coupled with high genetic gain was observed in days to 50% flowering, plant height, pod length, 100 seed weight and seed yield per plant which indicated the effect of additive genes. In the correlation study seed yield per plant had highly significant positive relation with number of pods per plant, number of branches per plant and number of seeds per pod. Pods per plant followed by pod length showed the highest positive direct effect on the seed yield per plant. Selection of these traits might cause the probability of simultaneous improvement of mungbean. The genotypes were grouped into four clusters by diversity (D 2 ) analysis where cluster I comprised 13 genotypes and cluster III and IV had 6 genotypes in each. The highest inter cluster distance was found between cluster II and cluster IV (10.425) and intra cluster distance in cluster II (2.45). Principal component analysis revealed first two components contributed 68.11% towards genetic diversity in mungbean. Therefore, it might be concluded that considering group distance and other agronomic performance G 1 (BD-6874), G 2 (BD-6875), G 14 (BD-6904), G

(BD-6929), G (BD-6932) had potential for improvement for further hybridization in breeding program.