Estimation of Genetic Variability for Yield and Yield Attributing Traits in Dolichus Bean [Lablab purpureus (L.) Sweet var. Typicus] Genotypes

Dolichos bean is an indigenous legume grown as vegetable (Lablab purpureus var. typicus) and pulse (Lablab purpureus var. lignosus) throughout India. A wide range of variation exists for the morphological and reproductive characters amongst the land races of Indian Bean grown all over the country. Therefore it is necessary to select variety having desired pod quality with high yield potential. Despite of these good attributing characters it is still regarded as underexploited vegetable because of low productivity, long duration and photosensitivity, flowering irregularity, growth habit and preference of consumers with respect to pod shape, pod size, pod colour, pod aroma. Keeping this in view the present investigation was conducted at All India Co-ordinated Research Project on Vegetable Crops, Odisha University Of Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar during Rabi, 2020-21 for evaluating the yield and yield attributing characters, for estimating the variability, heritability, genetic advance and the association between yield and yield attributing characters for an effective selection to estimate the genetic variability in Dolichus bean [Lablab purpureus (L.) sweet var. typicus] genotypes for further crop improvement study. The genotypic variance ranged from 0.02 for pod weight per plant to 2435 for average leaf area. The phenotypic variance ranged from 0.023 for pod weight per plant to 2879.8 for average leaf area. Phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) was higher than genotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) for all the 14 characters taken. This happened because PCV estimates includes variations due to environment (E) and genotype and environment (GE) interaction. PCV was highest (60.31) for pod yield per plant followed by average leaf area (35.09) indicating the presence of wide range of genetic variability in the germplasm for these traits. Higher value of GCV was found for characters like pod yield per plant (59.80) followed by average leaf area (32.26) and number of pods per plant (31.94). Highest estimates of heritability in broad sense was observed in Pod weight per plant (98.30) followed by number of pods per plant (96.17), average leaf area (84.55), number of pods per inflorescence (83.91), pod length (82.22), plant height (78.82), pod yield per hectare (78.66) indicating that these characters are less influenced by environment.