Estimates of broad-sense heritability for yield and yield criteria in chickpea (cicer arietinum L.)

Abstract

Forty-one chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) genotypes were tested for following traits and broad-sense heritabilities (H) were estimated, plant height (PH), first pod height (FPH), number of pods per plant (P/P), seed yield (SY), biological yield (BY), harvest index (HI), 100-seed weight (SW), days to flowering (DF) and days to maturity (DM). Based on the Analysis of variance (ANOVA), significant genotypic differences were found all traits except P/P and SY. Almost no genotype x year interactions were detected except SW and DM. Based on the heritability values, SW (94%) and DF (96%) were the most stable traits; while P/P (68%), BY (68%), and SY (69%) were the most affected traits. It was concluded that SW and DFcould be used as selection criteria in early generation in chickpea breeding programs due to their stability.