Saran S, Somya M, Surya Kirupa M, Surya S Nair and Nagalakshmi RM

Black gram genotypes collected throughout Tamil Nadu representing different agroclimatic zones are taken for the study. Eight genotypes of black gram (Vigna mungo) were investigated to understand the existing pattern diversity, variability and correlation using twelve quantitative traits. Genetic diversity studies were made in using Mahalanobis D2 statistics. The variability studies showed that plant height, number of branches per plant and had higher estimates of genotypic and phenotypic coefficient of variation. Heritability estimates were high for all the characters. Genetic advance as percentage of mean was high for plant height, pod length, number of clusters per plant, number of pods per plant, days to 50% flowering, number of seeds per plant, number of primary branches, days to maturity, 100 seed weight and grain yield per plant. Mahalanobsis analysis established the presence of wide genetic diversity among the genotypes and they were grouped into four clusters. Among the four clusters, cluster I was the largest with five genotypes and other clusters had only one genotype. The inter relationship among the characters revealed that selection based on number of pods per plant, number of branches per plant, number of clusters per plant and number of seeds per pods will be effective as they are highly correlated with grain yield. Partitioning correlation coefficients into direct and indirect effects by path coefficient analysis indicated that number of seeds per pod and pod length were the major yield contributing characters and have to adequate given selection pressure for improving grain yield. Considering all the diversity, mean performance and quantitative characters studied, the genotypes MDU 1, Nirmala and VBN 9 were found to be best for yield improvement programmes in black gram.

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