Estimation of gene effects using generation mean analysis in chickpea for yield and quantitative traits under timely and late sown conditions

Abstract

The chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.), which is known to be high-temperature sensitive, has its yields affected by heat stress in many parts of the world. Gene effects specially interactions effects have not been extensively investigated, making it challenging to generate the basic knowledge needed to create future breeding programmers. Hence, present study was conducted among six basic generations (P1, P2, F1, F2, B1 and B2) of three inter-varietal chickpea crosses to know inheritance pattern of yield and quantitative traits under timely (E1) and late sown (E2) conditions. Detrimental effect was observed on all traits under later sown condition. The magnitude and direction of different components (d), (h), (i), (j) and (l) of gene effects were influenced by the environments and also by the parents involved in the crosses. In most of the cases digenic interaction model was adequate to explain different components of genetic variance. Most of the characters under studied including seed yield were found to be controlled by both additive as well as non-additive gene effects along with preponderance of non-additive gene effects under both the conditions. The breeding methods suggested to achieve this objective are inter-mating the most desirable segregants followed selection, diallel selective mating system, multiple crosses and bi-parental mating. However, some of the characters in few crosses were governed or prepended by fixable (additive and/or additive x additive) gene effects hence, these characters could be improved through pedigree method of selection.