Assessment of Genetic Variability and Trait Association in Lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) for Yield and Attributing Traits

Abstract

The present study was conducted at College of Post Graduate Studies in Agricultural Sciences, Meghalaya, India in the rabi season (November–April) of 2020–21 to study genetic variability, character association and identify high yielding Al tolerant lentil RILs genotypes suitable for Al toxicity prone acidic soils of Meghalaya. The genotypes were screened through phenotypic evaluation in the field, character association, root morphology studies and determination of root Al content. The pooled variance analysis over two locations revealed highly significant genotype×location interaction for the traits under study except days to maturity, number of primary branches plant^-1 and number of seeds pod^-1, whereas variance due to genotypes was highly significant for all the 10 characters except number of seeds pod^-1. Among all the characters, high H_bs² coupled with high GA percentage were observed in number of primary branches plant^-1, plant height and 100 seed weight. Highly positive and highly significant correlation was observed between seed yield plant^-1 with number of pods plant^-1 (0.84^***), biological yield plant^-1 (0.79^***), number of seeds pod^-1 (0.47^***), number of primary branches plant^-1 (0.31^***) and harvest index (0.31^***). From the root morphology analysis, it was observed that high yielding tolerant genotypes constituted of well-established root systems under acidic soil conditions. Based on mean performance of seed yield plant^-1, various attributing traits and root morphology studies the best performing genotypes were LRIL-37, LRIL-22, LRIL-96, LRIL-97, LRIL-144, LRIL-92 and LRIL-109. The identified genotypes may be used for further evaluation in multiple environments for final release and also for use in the hybridisation programme.