ASSESSMENT OF GENETIC VARIABILITY AND CHARACTER ASSOCIATION IN MUNGBEAN (Vigna radiata L.) GENOTYPES

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the genetic variability and correlation between several yield contributing features in mungbean (Vigna radiata L.). Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) was used with three replications. Based on 14 genotypes from different Agricultural Research Institute, the study examined nine quantitative features during Kharif I season from March to June, 2020 at the Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University's research farm. The analysis of variance showed significant variation among all the genotypes in all the traits studied. The phenotypic variances were greater than the genotypic variances with little differences in all traits. High estimated Phenotypic coefficient of variance and genotypic coefficient of variance were observed for Number of branches /plant followed by 19.671& 18.309, Weight of 1000 seeds (g)25.339 & 25.254 and yield/plant (g) 31.296 & 31.049 respectively. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance as percent of mean were observed for plant height (cm) followed by 96.073 & 21.421, Number of leaves/plant 95.977& 31.950, Number of branches /plant 86.636 &35.107, Number of pods/plant 99.335 &55.623, pods length/plant (cm) 98.389 & 29.455, Number of seeds/pod 92.371 &33.375, Weight of 1000 seeds (g) 99.331 &51.848 and yield/plant (g)98.427 &63.456 respectively which indicated the effect of additive genes. In the correlation co-efficient analysis yield/plant had highly significant positive relation with Number of leaves/plant followed by 0.697&0.662, Number of branches/plant 0.872&0.799, Number of pods/plant 0.658&0.653, Number of pods cluster/plant 0.656&0.405, pods length/plant (cm) 0.736&0.722, no of seeds/pod 0.878&0.843 and Weight of 1000 seeds (g) 0.541&0.537 in both genotypic and phenotypic level which indicates these character can be considered during future Mungbean improvement program. Path analysis revealed that Number of seeds/pod 0.689, Number of leaves/plant 0.338, Number of branches/plant 0.196, Number of pods/plant 0.435 and Weight of 1000 seeds (g) 0.016 showed positive direct effect on yield/plant. This suggesting that selection of these qualities, the chance of simultaneous improvement of Mungbean could increase as well. Based on the results of this study the genotypes were grouped into four clusters by diversity (D 2 ) analysis where cluster IV comprised 6 genotypes, cluster I had 4 genotypes and cluster II and III had 2 genotypes in each. The maximum inter-genotypic distance was observed between G 1 and G 6 (1.288). Genetic diversity in Mungbean can be explained 89.82% by the first four components, according to principal component analysis. G 1 (BARI 1), G 2 (BARI 2), G 6 (BARI 6), G 7 (BARI 7) and G 10

(BINA 5) were shown to have potential for further hybridization in breeding programs, based on group distance and other agronomic performance measures.