Evaluation of selected traits in chickpea genetic resources

In 1998 and 1999 a set of 27 genetic resources of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) was evaluated in field experiment according to selected biological and economic traits and characters. The results achieved gave survey of variability in genetic resources of chickpea of national and international provenience. Maximum values of individual traits were achieved in genetic resources, as follows: ILC32 79 (SYR) with plant height of 716.5mm and height of setting the lowest pod - 298.5mm, FLIP 83-98C (SYR) with plant weight of 50.05g, ILC 2548 (SYR) with number of pods per plant - 63.5 pods, P678 (ESP) with number of seeds per plant - 75.6 seeds, FLIP 84-15 C (SYR) with TGW - 470.5g 'Maskovsky Bagovec' (SVK) with seed yield of 3.8 t/ha, 'Kalika' (IND) with traits of the resistance to Fusarium disease and to lodging and ILC 1335 (SYR) withprotein content of 24.8%. The poorest genotypes of minimum achieved values were 'Kalika' (IND) with plant height of 323.5 mm and plant weight of 15.2g, P 678 (ESP) with height of setting the lowest pod of 131.5 mm and TGW - 166.5 g, 'Akcin' (SYR) with number of pods per plant - 21.57 pods, CA 2156 (ESP) with number of seeds per plant - 18.15 seeds and plant weight - 6.51g, 6113 (SYR) with seed yield - 1.62 t/ha and stand condition - 8.5, FLIP 84 - 15 C (SYR) with trait of resistance to lodging - 4 points and JG - 62 (ESP) with trait of protein content (19.95%). The results were processed by variance analysis and relationships between the tested traits and the characteristics were expressed by correlation coefficients. The results of variance analysis showed that variability of individual traits was affected by year above all, but also by genotype. There was a strong dependence in the tested set between the length of vegetation period and the traits:plant height, height of setting the lowest pod, plant weight and TGW; between plant height and the traits:height of setting the lowest pod, plant weight and TGW; between the traits number of pods and number of seeds per plant and between resistance to lodging and resistance to Fusarium disease. Negative strong dependence was found between the traits number of seeds per plant and TGW, between traits number of seeds per plant and traits:length of vegetation period, plant height and height of setting the lowest pod. For the purpose of classification of the 13-dimensional set two multivariate techniques were used. A principal component analysis was carried out to transform the interdependent variables into a set of independent variables as well as to reduce the dimensionality of the structure. A cluster analysis with Ward's method was used to see whether the genetic resources fell into groups or clusters. In our application of Ward's method, a Squared Euclidean distance matrix is computed. Before computing the distance, our data were standardized as recommended by Fox and Rosielle (1982). All analyses were carried out using the STATGRAPHICS and SPSS package