Vol. 11, Issue 7 (2022)

Author(s):
BL Kumhar, D Singh, ML Jakhar, Varsha Kumari, Anju Nehra, Sarfraz Ahmad and NR Koli

Abstract:
The present study was conducted to generate information on mean performance of the yield and yield attributes of chickpea under rainfed and irrigated conditions. The experiment was conducted in compact family block design with three replications under two separate irrigated and rainfed conditions. Observations were recorded on days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, plant height, fruiting branches per plant, pods per plant, seeds per pod, biological yield per plant, seed yield per plant, harvest index, 100-seed weight and protein content in each experiment, separately. Significant differences among the crosses were observed for all the characters under both the conditions. Pooled analysis of variance over environments revealed highly significant differences among generations and environments for most of the traits in most of the crosses. Reduction in performance was observed for all the studied characters under rainfed condition except protein content. Maximum reduction was observed in pods per plant followed by seed yield per plant, biological yield per plant, fruiting branches per plant, plant height, thus, it can be said that these characters were more prone to moisture stress. Seeds per pod and 100-seed weight showed less reduction indicated that these characters were not significantly affected by moisture stress and showing stable and highly heritable nature. Therefore it is suggested that more consideration should be given to the characters like pods per plant, fruiting branches per plant, biological yield per plant and plant height while deciding selection criteria for rainfed condition. Selection for seed weight and seeds per pod can be exercised at any stage of generation advancement due to their stable nature and high heritability. Cross IPC-94-94 x RSG-RSG-888 was observed to be earliest to flower and mature under both the conditions, which may be utilized for development of an early flowering and early maturing types. Bold seeded parents viz., ICC-4958, BG-362 and IPC-94-94 and their crosses had higher mean values for yield and yield contributing characters even in rainfed condition indicated that bold seeded genotypes and their crosses generally showed higher degree of drought tolerance in comparison to medium seeded genotypes and can be bred for drought tolerance.