Evaluation of Genetic Variation for Agronomic and Morphological Traits in Some of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) Genotypes

Introduction: Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is a winter crop and mostly self-pollinated with chromosome number 2n=2x=16 that it is known as an important source of vegetable protein in the world. It is found that 70% of the total world’s Chickpea production belong to the Asian region. India, Turkey, Pakistan, and Iran are the major countries in Asia that produce chickpea. Iran is important center of chickpea diversity but the productivity of chickpea in Iran is variable and low, which may be related to limiting climatic factors, water availability, genotype and little breeding work in Iranian chickpea cultivars. Presence of genetic diversity among genotypes indicate the genotypes are a valuable resource to increase product quality and productivity. Analysis of genetic diversity can provide practical information for selection of parental material in plant breeding programs and gene-bank management. The objectives of this study were to evaluate genetic variation among chickpea genotypes and to determine the relationships among agronomic traits with seed yield using analysis of variance, comparison of means, correlation coefficient, step-wise regression and path analysis. Materials and Methods: The experiment was conducted in the city of Khorramabad 2014-2015, in latitude 33 degrees 36 minutes north and longitude 47 degrees and 40 minutes east of the Greenwich meridian is located. Its height from sea level is 1200 meters. Fifteen chickpea genotypes were supplied from Dry land Agricultural Research Institute, Iran and studied for various yield parameters under field conditions in a randomized complete block design with three replications. in present study 21 morphological characteristics such as plant height, number of primary branches, number of secondary branches, number of total pod per plant, number of node per stem, number of one-seed pod, number of two-seed pod, number of empty pod per plant, pod weight (seed+shell), seed weight per plant, 100- seed weight, number of filled pod, seed yield, number of seed per pod, number of seed per plant, biological yield, straw yield, harvest index, total seed weight (seed+straw), dry weight of stem and productivity effort were evaluated. Results: The analysis of variance showed highly significant variations (