Characterization fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) genotypes through morphological characters

Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) is an annul autogamous crop grown as seed spice in India. Green leaves of fenugreek used for vegetable purpose. Apart from this, it is also used in different pharmaceutical preparations. Estimates of various parameters for assessment of genetic variability viz. mean, range of variation, heritability, genetic advance and coefficients of variation help the plant breeders in devising suitable plant type by bringing improvement in quantitatively inherited traits. Correlations provide an estimate of the degree and direction of association among various components of yield. It is, therefore, essential to measure the contribution of various variables to the observed association and partition the correlation coefficient into the components of direct and indirect effects. Hence, the present investigation was undertaken. With this objective an investigation was laid out in Randomised Block Design with three replications at the main experiment station of Department of Vegetable Science, Narendra Deva University of Agriculture and Technology, Narendranagar (Kumarganj), Faizabad (U.P.) in India grown during winter. Thirty-one genotypes of fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) were assessed for a phenotypic coefficient of variance (pcv), genotypic coefficient of variance (gcv), heritability and genetic advance as percentage of mean for growth, yield attributes and yield. The results reveals that the higher magnitude of coefficient of variation at genotypic level was observed for number of pods per plant, number of branches per plot, number of seeds per pod, plant height, seed yield per plant, yield (q/ha), length of pod whereas at phenotypic level, number of pods/plant, number of branches per plant, number of seeds per pod, plant height, seed yield per plant yield (q/ha) and length of pod revealed high magnitude of coefficient of variation. The indicated possibility of obtaining very high selection response in respect of these traits. In this way, high values of genotypic and phenotypic coefficient of variation was also observed in fenugreek for plant height, days to flowering, branches per plant and test weight and low for pod length, when studied with 22 genotypes in field condition and high genotypic coefficient of variation for number of secondary branches, number of pods per plant and seed yield was observed in fenugreek (Banerjee and Kole, 2004 and Datta et al., 2005). High heritability coupled with high genetic advance in per cent of mean were observed for number of pods per plant, number of branches per plant, number of seeds per pod and plant height. It is also reported that high heritability for pods per plant, pod length and seed yield, while low heritability was observed for seeds per pod and test weight (Meena, 1994). However, high genetic advance was recorded for pods per plant and seed yield and a low genetic advance was recorded for test weight, seeds per pod and branches per plant. Selection of these characters would be effective for obtaining high yielding genotype by additive gene effect.