Environmental Influence on Heritability and Selection Response of Vegetative and Maturity Traits In Mungbean

Thirty mungbean Vigna radiata (L. Wilczek) with different genotypes were evaluated at two locations of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan during 2007 and 2008 using randomized complete block design with three replications. Highly significant differences (P ≤ 0.01) were observed among the genotypes for vegetative and maturity traits across years at both locations as well as across years and locations. Location × year effect was highly significant (P ≤ 0.01) for days to flowering, plant height and nodes plant-1. Genotype × location interaction was highly significant (P ≤ 0.01) for days to flowering, maturity, plant height and leaf area, indicating differential performance of mungbean genotypes over the two test locations. Means for flower initiation, physiological maturity, plant height, leaves plant-1, nodes plant-1 and leaf area at Peshawar and Swat were 47.2 vs 50.5 days, 86.5 vs 84.2 days, 55.5 vs 52.3 cm, 8.1 vs 8.5, 10.6 vs 10.3 and 181.8 vs 202.4 cm2, respectively. The genetic variance was higher than environmental variance for most of the traits at both locations. Heritability estimates for the traits were generally greater in magnitude at Peshawar than Swat: 0.63 vs 0.53, 0.75 vs 0.60, 0.81 vs 0.84, 0.73 vs 0.49, 0.56 vs 0.52 and 0.50 vs 0.37 for days to flowering, maturity, plant height, leaves plant-1, nodes plant-1, and leaf area, respectively. Expected response to selection for all traits was higher at Peshawar than Swat suggesting that selection of desirable mungbean genotypes can be effectively carried out at Peshawar.