Evaluation of selection criteria in Cicer arietinum L. using correlation coefficients and path analysis

The study pertaining to the evaluation of selection criteria in chickpea using correlation coefficients and path analysis was carried out in the Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad for a period of two years. Experimental material comprised of twenty chickpea genotypes. The genotypes demonstrated highly significant differences (P<0.01) for all the traits studied. The results of correlation analysis revealed that that grain yield plant-1 had significant genotypic and highly significant phenotypic relationship with primary branches, pods plant-1, seeds plant-1, seeds pod-1 and total biological yield. The path coefficient analysis based on grain yield plant-1, as a dependent variable, exposed that all of the other traits, except days to flowering, days to maturity and secondary branches exhibited positive direct effects. The path analysis confirmed that biological yield followed by number of seeds pod-1, 100-grain weight, had the maximum positive direct influence on grain yield plant-1. Therefore, this study suggests that chickpea improvement progarmme could be based on these characters as selection criteria.