Assessment of genetic variability for fodder yield and yield attributing traits in advanced breeding lines of fodder cowpea

GOURAMMA SIDDAPUR; K. SRIDHAR; SUMANGALA BHAT; N. S. KULKARNI

GOURAMMA SIDDAPUR Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, College of Agriculture, Dharwad University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad - 580 005, India
K. SRIDHAR Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, College of Agriculture, Dharwad University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad - 580 005, India
SUMANGALA BHAT Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, College of Agriculture, Dharwad University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad - 580 005, India
N. S. KULKARNI Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, College of Agriculture, Dharwad University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad - 580 005, India

Keywords: Fodder Cowpea, Genetic advance as per cent mean, Genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV), Heritability, Phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV)

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to assess genetic variability in 57 advanced breeding lines (ABL’s) of two crosses viz., MFC-09-12 x BL-2 and UPC-622 × EC-4216 in fodder cowpea. The ABL’s along with their parents and two national check BL-1 and BL-2, one zonal check MFC-09-01 and IGFRI-DC-215 (state variety released for Karnataka) were evaluated in RCBD with two replications during kharif 2022 and rabi 2022-23. Environmental influence was minimum for the expression of all the traits which is evident from narrow difference between phenotypic co-efficient of variation (PCV) and genotypic co-efficient of variation (GCV) estimates. In both the crosses, high heritability values were found for the all the traits in both the seasons. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance as per cent of mean has been observed for the traits viz., days to maturity, plant height, primary branches, L/S ratio, green fodder yield and dry matter yield in both the seasons for the two crosses indicating the preponderance of additive gene action for the above characters. Thus, the information on the genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance per cent mean for different yield related traits provides a basis for trait improvement for developing fodder cowpea genotypes with higher fodder yield potential.