Kumar, MithileshAnand, Rahul2020-02-042020-02-042019http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810142429The present study was undertaken with twenty four germplasm accessions of chickpea having different geographical origin, obtained from germplasm collections at T.C.A., Dholi, The experiment was carried out at T.C.A., Dholi Research Farm of Dr. R.P.C.A.U., Pusa, Samastipur, Bihar, in a completely Randomised Block Design with three replications during kharif, 2018 for molecular characterization and divergence analysis in chickpea [Cicer arientinum L.]. Data were collected for seven characters viz., Plant height (cm), No. Of branches per plant, Days to 50% flowering, Pods per plant, No. of seeds per pod, 100 seed weight (g) and yield per plant (kg/plot).Statistical analysis carried out were, Analysis of variance, genotypic and phenotypic coefficient of variation, Heritability, Genetic advance, Genetic diversity and molecular characterization. Analysis of variance revealed highly significant differences among the genotypes for all the seven characters under study. Maximum range was found for the characters like yield followed by pods per plant. The phenotypic coefficient of variance was greater than genotypic coefficient of variance for all the characters under study and high magnitude of PCV and GCV were observed for traits like no. of pods per plant indicating that these traits could be used for yield improvement. Characters like yield, pods per plant and plant height exhibited high Heritability coupled with high Genetic advance as percent of mean indicating effectiveness of selection. All the twenty four genotypes were grouped into 5 clusters using Eucledean2 statistics following clustering suggested by Ward. Highest inter cluster distance was observed between cluster I and V on the basis of their genetic distances. Genotypes from these clusters may be utilised under hybridisation programme for getting superior recombinants. Cluster II showed maximum cluster mean values for yield per plot (538) and attributing characters like plant height (40.20); number of primary branches (3.05) and pods per plant (15.13) by cluster I, number of seeds per pod (1.59) by cluster III and 100 seed weight by cluster V Therefore, selection of parents from different clusters might be done for desired traits on the basis of higher cluster mean values. 20 SSR primer pairs for molecular characterization of 18 chickpea genotypes were used to generate a total of 77 shared and 50 unique allelic variants in the form of amplified products. The PIC values revealing allele diversity and frequency among the chickpea genotypes varied from 0.549 in H2A02 to 0.994 in H2E13. Eight primers namely, H1A06, H1I24, H2A11, H2I10, H2J10, H2J11, H2J19 and H3A07 appeared to be highly polymorphic and comparatively more informative. The polymorphism per cent revealed in the form of percentage of unique alleles was recorded to be the maximum in the case of H2I01 (71.42%).By drawing the phenon line at 26 phenon similarity units, the 18 entries were basically divided into six groups. Analysis of divergence pattern based on morphological and molecular characterization having seven traits and twenty SSR markers allowed differentiation and classification of twenty four and eighteen chickpea genotypes into five and six clusters, respectively. Use of SSR markers appeared more efficient in achieving unique and unambiguous characterization and differentiation of chickpea genotypes used in the present study. There was 16.66% similarity between pattern based on morphological and molecular characterization.ennullThesis