RAMESH, SVAIJAYANTHI, P V2016-11-042016-11-042013-07-23TH-10511http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/83790Development of a reduced representative set of a large base collection enable its enhanced use in crop improvement. Considering the size of current Dolichos bean germplasm (648 accessions) being maintained at AICRP on pigeonpea, ZARS, UAS, GKVK, Bangalore is unwieldy for management, characterization and evaluation and hence increased use in breeding Dolichos bean, an attempt was made to develop a core set from Dolichos bean germplasm. 644 germplasm accessions along with four check varieties were characterized for 21 qualitative traits and evaluated for 20 quantitative traits following Augmented design during Kharif 2012 at ZARS, UAS, GKVK, Bangalore. Substantial polymorphism for qualitative traits and genetic variability for quantitative traits in the germplasm were evident. A total of 10 core sets were developed using 20 quantitative traits data following standard stratified sampling and heuristic strategiesbased approaches. Qualitative traits-based statistics such as chi-square test and ‘class coverage’, and ‘Shannon-Weaver diversity index’ were used as validation criteria to examine homogeneity and retention of qualitative traits-based classes, and polymorphism diversity, respectively in the core sets to assess their representativeness. Quantitative traitsbased univariate statistics -mean and variance and standardized multivariate statistics such as SMD%, CR%, VD% and VR% were used to assess the representativeness of core sets. Different core sets were representative of the base collection based on different validation criteria. Heuristic approach-based core set of 10 per cent size was identified as the best representative of the base collection. This core set is suggested as a priority resource for use in breeding Dolichos bean.en---Thesis