Effects of Yield Contributing Characters on Seed Yield in Black Gram [Vigna mungo L. Hepper]

The present study was designed in order to evaluate the genetic variability parameters, correlation coefficients and path analysis in black gram genotypes for eastern zone of Uttar Pradesh, India. Twenty-one genotypes of black gram were evaluated for the study. The experiment was conducted in a Randomized Block Design with three replications during the Kharif season 2023 at the Field Experimentation Centre, Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Naini Agriculture Institute, Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences, Naini, Prayagraj, U.P. the plant to plant distance was 10 cm and row to row distance was 30 cm. the data were recorded from randomly selected five plants for each genotype for each replication for thirteen characters viz. days to 50% flowering, days to 50% pod setting, days to maturity, plant height (cm), number of primary branches, number of clusters per plant, number of pods per plant, pod length (cm), number of seeds per pod, seed index (g), biological yield (g), harvest index and seed yield per plant (g). From the present investigation it is concluded that analysis of variance showed significant variation among different genotypes for all characters studied. The number of pods per plant, number of clusters per pod, number of primary branches per plant, seed yield per plant, biological yield, harvest index and plant height exhibited high estimates of GCV and PCV. Genetic parameters also revealed that high heritability (broad sense) was observed for harvest index, biological yield, seed yield per plant, seed index, number of pods per plant, days to maturity, days to 50% flowering, number of primary branches per plant, number of clusters per plant, plant height, days to 50% pod setting, number of seeds per pod. Correlation coefficient analysis revealed that seed yield per plant exhibited significant and positive association with days to 50% flowering, plant height, number of primary branches per plant, number of clusters per plant, number of pods per plant, seed index and biological yield at phenotypic level. Path coefficient analysis revealed that characters like biological yield, harvest index, seed index, number of seeds per pod, pod length, number of clusters per plant, days to 50% pod setting and days to 50% flowering showed the maximum positive direct effects on seed yield at the phenotypic level. This indicated that seed yield was mainly a product of direct and indirect impact of the above attributing characters and priority should be given to these characters during selection for improvement in black gram.