GENETIC PARAMETERS AND MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS OF EARLY MATURING PIGEON PEA (CAJANUS CAJAN, LINNAEUS AND MILLSPAUGH) GENOTYPES
Keywords:
Flowering, Genetics, Maturity, Pigeon pea, VariationAbstract
Pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan L. Millsp.) is regarded as underutilised despite its nutritive values and enormous potential for food security. An adequate understanding of the genetics of its earliness in maturity will foster rapid progress in selection for early maturity. Hence, the study aimed to identify early maturing pigeon pea genotypes and further evaluate the genetic parameters. Early maturing pigeon peas (n = 22; days to 50% maturity (D50M) < 160 days) were identified among genotypes collected from ICRISAT, Niamey, Niger through evaluation for maturity. These were planted in polyethene pots containing 2 kg of soil after conducting viability tests in a randomised complete block design with three replications. The study examined 13 quantitative traits. Results revealed variation in traits evaluated among genotypes. Traits such as days to 50% flowering (D50F), pod length, pod number (PDN), plant height, D50M, and seeds per pod, contributed to the variations accounted for by the principal component analysis (PC1 = 41.88%). Environmental variations, a summation of genotype by environment interactions (GEI), specific and general environmental variances were higher than genotypic variations for D50F and D50M implying more environmental influence than genetics in these traits. Unsurprisingly, there was a strong and positive significant correlation between D50F and D50M genotypically (rg = 0.65, p < 0.01) and phenotypically (rp = 0.83, p < 0.01). Only PDN showed a strong and positive significant correlation with both D50F (rg = 0.37, rp = 0.95, p < 0.01) and D50M (rg = 0.96, rp = 0.48, p < 0.01). These traits can be harnessed for early-maturity identification in pigeon peas and improvement programmes in pigeon peas.