Identification of selection indices and choosing of parents for vegetable cowpea (Vigna unguiculatacv-gr. sesquipedalis) breeding programme

Biometrical studies of yield and related traits in advance breeding lines of bush type vegetable cowpea [Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.]

“…Correlation of pod yield per plant 0.442** 0.382** 0.015 0.028 * and ** indicate the significant at 5% and 1 % level of probability, respectively; rg = Genotypic correlation coefficient; rp = Phenotypic correlation coefficient; Residual effect, at phenotypic level = 0.375 Table 3 with number of pods per plant, number of peduncles per plant, pod weight, pod length, number of seeds per pod and number of primary branches per plant were found highly significant and positive at genotypic and phenotypic levels which imply that selection for these characters would lead to simultaneous improvement of pod yield in vegetable cowpea. This agrees with the previous assertion by Huque et al (2012a), Chattopadhyay et al (2014) and Madhavi et al (2014).…”

“…Thus, selection of these traits on the basis of genotypic value may be effective. Similar results were earlier reported by several workers (Lal et al, 2007;Ullah et al, 2011;Huque et al, 2012a;Nwofia et al, 2013;Chattopadhyay et al, 2014).…”

“…High values of broad sense heritability (>87%) in conjunction with high genetic advance as percentage of mean (>22%) were obtained for the traits such as number of peduncles per plant, pod yield per plant, number of pods per plant, peduncle length, number of primary branches per plant, pod length, pod weight and number of seeds per pod which is an indicative of additive gene action and selection based on these parameters would be more reliable. These observations find the support from previous workers Nath et al, (2009); Ullah et al, (2011);Huque et al, (2012a); Chattopadhyay et al, (2014).…”

“…Among the nine yield component traits, number of pods per plant followed by pod weight showed highly positive direct effect on pod yield per plant which corroborates the findings of previous workers (Lal et al, 2007;Ullah et al, 2011;Chattopadhyay et al, 2014). The present study indicated that direct selection of these two characters could be beneficial for yield improvement of bush type vegetable cowpea since these characters also showed positive correlation with pod yield per plant.…”

“…It constructs an all-to-all matrix to describe the distance between each sequence pair of genotypes; thereby guiding plant breeder in their selection procedure (Adewale et al, 2011). The multivariate analysis is a useful tool for choosing the parents for hybridization and has been well demonstrated by various workers (Lal et al, 2007;Sulnathi et al, 2007;Suganthi et al, 2007;Huque et al, 2012b;Chattopadhyay et al, 2014). Therefore, in the present work, an attempt was made to study the genetic variability, inter-relationship, cause-effect analysis between yield and its components and the nature and magnitude of genetic divergence to identify important selection indices influencing pod yield and selection of suitable genotypes that can profitably be utilized in a hybridization programme.…”