Vol. 12, Special Issue 8 (2023)

Author(s):
B Rajasekhar Reddy, Hira Lal, Pradip Pandey and N Rai

Abstract:
The present study was carried out to study the genetic diversity and correlation in 79 genotypes of cowpea for various quantitative characters. All the seventy nine genotypes were laid out in augmented block design with nine blocks and four checks. A total of nine principal components contributed for cent percent of variability in the present study. Principal component 1 contributed for 42.96% of total variation for which pod number, peduncle number, number of primary branches/plant, pod yield/plant and peduncle length contributed for variability. Total variability contribution by component 2 was 21.84% by 10 pod weight, pod length, seed number and plant height. 12.14% of total variability was contributed by principal component 3 for which yield per plant, pod weight, pod number and pod length contributed. The component 4, component 5 and component 6 contributed 7.74%, 6.48% and 4.27% of total variability. The first six principal components contributed a cumulative total of 95.43% by nine quantitative characters. Out of nine characters studied the characters that contributed maximum towards divergence were pod number, peduncle number, number of primary branches per plant and yield per plant. Highly significant posititve correlation for the dependant variable pod yield (kg/plant) was observed with pod number (0.7489) followed by peduncle number (0.6725), peduncle length (cm) (0.5185) and number of primary branches/plant (0.4533).