Screening of Chickpea Germplasm for Growth and Yield Related Traits under Agro-Climatic Conditions of Thal

A field experiment comprising of fifty chickpea germplasm entries along with two commercial varieties (Punjab-2008 and Bittle-2016) was carried out for characterization of chickpea germplasm and screening of superior chickpea genotypes under agro-climatic conditions of Kallurkot (Thal, Punjab, Pakistan) at research area of Gram Breeding Research Station, Kallurkot (71.153°E and 32.923°N). D2 Statistics, principal component and cluster analysis were employed for screening of chickpea genotypes. Results showed wide range and higher values of variance for the included traits. PCA results demonstrated that the first four principal components extracted more than 1 Eigen values with a cumulative share of 74% of total variation. Cluster analysis distributed the genotypes into five distinguished clusters. Dendrogram constructed on the basis of Euclidean distance showed that the members of cluster IV (GP-17215, GP-16548) and V (GP-16929, GP-01937, GP-01974) possess higher genetic variation. Results confirmed that these genotypes possess the best combination of morpho-agronomic and may be utilized further for chickpea yield improvement program.