Studies on Genetic Variability, Heritability and Genetic Advance in Garden Pea (Pisum sativum L.) varieties

A member of Leguminosae (Fabaceae) family and the famous plant species in which G.H. Mendel worked out Mendel’s Law and Genetic principles. It is the second most important food legume worldwide after Phaseolus vulgaris (Taranet al.,2005).It is grown mainly as a winter vegetable in the plains of North India and as a summer vegetable in the hills of other states (Thamburaj, 2015). Pea is of Mediterranean origin, and the Near East and Ethiopia are considered as secondary centres of origin An Experiment was carried out at Kittur Rani Channamma College of Horticulture, Arabhavi, UHS, Bagalkot during the year 2018-19.The observations were recorded on various yield and yield contributing characters. Analysis of variance indicated highly significant difference among the genotypes for all the characters indicating the presence of wide range of variability in the genotypes. ThePCV was invariably higher than their corresponding GCV for all the characters. High GCV as well as PCV wasobservedfornumber of branches per plant (25.55 and 27.46), pod yield per plant (23.42 and 23.64) and pod yield per plot (23.12 and 23.68) and indicates the existence of broad genetic base. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance over percent mean observed for the traits viz., plant height, number of branches per plant, number of leaves per plant,number of pods per plant, number of pods per axil, pod length, pod yield per plant, pod yield per plot, number of seeds per pod, weight of 100 seeds, protein and TSS. These characters are under the influence of additive gene actionand selection for genotypic and phenotypic improvement for these traits would be effective. K e y w o r d s