Exploring genetic variability and trait associations with focus on flowering time in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

The current study evaluated a diverse chickpea reference set of 280 accessions for days to first flower, days to fifty percent flowering and days to maturity to understand the genetic nature of these traits along with other agronomic traits. The experiments were conducted during Rabi 2023-24 at ICRISAT, Hyderabad (Env I) and ARS, Mudhole (Env II). The observations revealed significant variability for days to first flower, days to fifty percent flowering and days to maturity ranging from 35-72 days, 41-78 days and 81-112 days, respectively, under Env I, II, and pooled environments. The genotypic coefficient of variance was lower than the phenotypic coefficient of variance under individual and pooled conditions for all the traits in the present study indicating a strong environmental influence. Days to first flower, days to fifty percent flowering, and days to maturity showed a high broad sense heritability across individual and pooled environments. High genetic advance as percent of mean is observed for days to first flower (25.8%, 21.8%, 22%), moderate to high for fifty percent flowering (23.3%, 19.3%, 19.6%), and low to moderate for days to maturity (9.9%, 10.1%, 7.1%) for Env I, II, and pooled conditions, respectively. Days to first flower and days to fifty percent flowering showed a significant negative correlation with yield per plant (-0.25, -0.36, -0.37), under Env I, II, and pooled conditions, respectively. Days to maturity showed significant negative correlations with yield per plant (-0.43, -0.30) only under Env II and pooled conditions. These correlations suggest that selecting accessions with earlier days to first flower, fifty percent flowering, and maturity may be effective for maximizing yield. Thus, the promising accessions with early days to first flower, days to fifty percent flowering and days to maturity identified in the study can be used as potential donors to develop early flowering chickpea cultivars.