Information on genetic variability in cowpea germplasm is important for crop improvement and for efficient utilization of the existing genetic resources. Hence, the objectives of the present investigation were to estimate genetic variability, heritability, genetic advance and to identify divergent parents from distantly related clusters among Ethiopian cowpea accessions. The field experiment was carried out using 42 accessions at Abergelle Agricultural Research Center on station during the 2019 cropping season. Data were collected for 8 agronomic traits and analysis of variance revealed significant differences (p<0.01) among the accessions for the traits studied. Seed yield had higher Genotypic Coefficient of Variation (GCV) and Phenotypic Coefficient of Variation (PCV) coupled with the highest genetic advance as percent of mean (100%). All the traits had moderate (68.01) to very high (99.98%) broad sense heritability. Further, high heritability coupled with high genetic advance as percent of mean was attained for days to flowering, grain filling period, plant height, pod length, seed yield and thousand seed weight reflecting the presence of additive gene action for the expression of these traits and improvement of these traits could be done through selection. The cluster analysis based on agronomic traits revealed four distinct groups at 90% similarity level. The highest inter cluster D2 was recorded between cluster III and cluster IV (D2=133.69 units). The range of inter cluster distance was 15.25 to 133.69 units, respectively. In conclusion, the high genetic distance revealed among clusters has to be exploited via crossing and selection of the most divergent parents for future cowpea improvement program.
Keywords:
Published on: Mar 19, 2021 Pages: 138-146
Full Text PDF
Full Text HTML
DOI: 10.17352/2455-815X.000101
CrossMark
Publons
Harvard Library HOLLIS
Search IT
Semantic Scholar
Get Citation
Base Search
Scilit
OAI-PMH
ResearchGate
Academic Microsoft
GrowKudos
Universite de Paris
UW Libraries
SJSU King Library
SJSU King Library
NUS Library
McGill
DET KGL BIBLiOTEK
JCU Discovery
Universidad De Lima
WorldCat
VU on WorldCat
PTZ: We're glad you're here. Please click "create a new query" if you are a new visitor to our website and need further information from us.
If you are already a member of our network and need to keep track of any developments regarding a question you have already submitted, click "take me to my Query."