Stability and Molecular Characterization of Heat Tolerant Genotypes of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

Twenty eight diverse genotypes sown in three different dates were screened using thirty three SSR primers. Twelve morphological characters recorded. The current study was conducted at all India Coordinated Research Project on Chickpea at R.A.K., College of Agriculture, Sehore (M.P.) during Rabi 2020-21, and 2021-22. The molecular work was carried out at Plant Molecular Biology Laboratory, Department of Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, College of Agriculture, Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya, Gwalior (M.P.). The component G×E interaction were found significant for flower initiation, days to 50% flowering, days to pod initiation, plant height, days to maturity, number of pods per plant, number of empty pods per plant, number of seeds per plant, biological yield per plant, harvest index, 100 seed weight and seed yield per plant. The highest gene diversity was found in TA-135 (0.7474) followed by GAA-44 (0.7219), GAA-40 (0.7015), STMS-2 (0.6939), TA-71 (0.6709), NCPGR-1 (0.6403) and TA-18 (0.3648). Based on a dendrogram all the 28 genotypes were grouped into three major clusters, in which cluster I contained 2 genotypes, cluster II contained 5 genotypes and cluster III encompassed remaining 21 genotypes. Genotypes RVG 204, JG-14, and RVSSG-61 were found stable for favourable and unfavourable sowing conditions, while ICC-4958, JG-11, JG-12, RVG-203, RVG-204, RVSSG-52, JG-74, RVSSG-71 showed consistent performance during unfavourable sowing conditions for seed yield per plant. The important traits and marker based diversity and stability has been discussed in this research paper.