Variability Studies on Yield, Drought Tolerant and Mechanical Harvestable Traits in Genotypes of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.).

Genetic variability among thirty chickpea genotypes with three replications utilising 19 yield, drought tolerance and mechanical harvestable traits was studied under rainfed and irrigated conditions at Regional Agricultural Research Station, Nandyal, Andhra Pradesh, India. The analysis of variance carried out for 19 yield, yield attributing and drought tolerant traits revealed highly significant differences among the genotypes for all characters under rainfed as well as irrigated conditions. Variability study revealed high heritability accompanied with high to moderate genetic advance for drought tolerant traits like SLA, SCMR and proline. Traits related to mechanical harvesting viz., height of the first pod and plant height exhibited moderate variability, high heritability and high genetic advance both under rainfed and irrigated conditions. Seed yield, harvest index, 100 seed weight and days to 50 per cent flowering exhibited moderate to high genetic variability, high heritability coupled with high genetic gain under rainfed and irrigated conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]