A study on determination of genetic structure of phenological, morphological and agricultural characters of kabuli, desi and wild chickpea genotypes

This study was conducted for three years in the Field Crops trial area of Dicle University, Faculty of Agriculture, between 2022 and 2024. In the study, the genetic structure of phenological, morphological and agricultural traits was examined in the F1 and F2 generations obtained by half-diallel (5 × 5) hybridization and free hybridization (16 combinations) of different numbers of desi, Kabuli and wild chickpea species. In the study, 3 desi (Black, ICCV 10 and ILC 533) and 2 Kabuli type parents (Azkan and ILC 482) were used for half-diallele hybridization. For free hybridization, 6 Kabuli types (Azkan, Gökçe, ILC 482, ILC 1929, ILC 533 and Diyar 95) and 6 desi types (Black, ICC 16207, ICCV 03107, ICCV 96029, JG 11 and ICCV10) and 2 wild Cicer types (C. echinospermum and C. reticulatum) were used as parents. 11 hybrid combinations were created for half-diallele hybridization and 15 hybrid combinations for free hybridization. Crossbreeding was carried out in 2022. F1 seeds were planted in 2023 and F2 seeds in 2024. The trial was arranged according to the Randomized Blocks Trial design with 3 replications. In the research, the number of days from emergence to the first flower in parent and F1 hybrids, the number of days from flowering to pod formation, the number of days from emergence to pod formation, the number of nodes on the stem where the first flower is seen, plant height, number of nodes per plant, 10 grain weight, first pod height, seed yield per plant, number of pods per plant, internode length and thickness, flower colour, foliage colour, plant growth habit, leaf and leaflet length and width, number of leaflets per leaf, anthocyanin pigmentation, reddish stem traits were examined. Data were evaluated with half diallel, heterosis, heterobeltoisis, potency ratio and chi square tests. In the traits examined in the F1 and F2 generations, the variance of dominant gene effects (H) is greater than the variance of additive gene effects (D). Effective gene numbers could not be determined in all examined characters except 10 seed weight, and 10 seed weight was determined to be controlled by two genes. Narrow-sense heritability (hn) was high in the number of days to first flowering, number of pods per plant (0.67), plant height (0.85) and 10 seed weight (0.82). In the F1 generation, the additive gene effect variance was found to be greater than the dominant gene effect variance in all traits except the GCA/SCA ratio, plant height, number of nodes per plant, number of leaflets per leaf, and in the F2 generation, the variance of the additive gene effect was found to be greater than the variance of the dominant gene effect in all traits except the number of pods and the number of leaflets per leaf. In the F1 and F2 generations, the Azkan parent was the best parent and the best hybrid combinations differed according to the traits examined. According to the results of free hybridization; In the F1 generation, Azkan (late) × C. reticulatum (mid-early) combination showed the highest negative heterobeltiosis for the number of days to first flowering. In the F2 generation, negative heterosis was detected in the combinations of ICCV 96029 (super early) × Azkan (late), ICCV 96029 (super early) × Gökçe (medium early), Azkan × C. reticulatum (medium early) and Gökçe × C. reticulatum. Maximum negative heterosis and heterobeltiosis for plant height were detected in the combinations of Gökçe × C. echinospermum in the F1 generation and ICCV10 (short) × Gökçe (tall) in the F2 generation. High level of positive heterosis for 10 seed weight was determined in the combination of ICCV96029 (small) × Azkan (large) and the heritability was found to be low. It has been determined that the inheritance of number of flowering days, 9 (late): 7 (early) and 3 (late): 1 (early), and the inheritance of flower colour, 3 (pink): 1 (white), the goodness of fit of Mendelian in many combinations, and traits were controlled by a single gene. Keywords: Cicer sp., Diallel, Heterosis, Heterobeltiosis, Chi square.