Principal Component Analysis of Field Pea (Pisum sativum L. Var. arvense) Genotypes

Abstract

Field pea is one of the important rabi pulse crops that requires improvement to enhance productivity due to its growing demand. PCA was employed to assess variability among fifty-seven field pea genotypes, including two checks Pant P 554 and JM 6, evaluated at the Seed Breeding Farm, JNKVV, Jabalpur during rabi 2024–25 in a Randomized Complete Block Design with two replications. Sixteen quantitative traits were studied (Days to 50% flowering and maturity, Number of primary branches per plant, Number of secondary branches per plant, Number of nodes per plant, Number of effective nodes per plant,  Pod length, Pod bearing length, Number of pods per plant, Number of effective pods per plant, Plant height, Numbers of seeds per pod, Hundred seed weight, Seed yield per plant, Biological yield per plant, Harvest index) out of which five PCs with eigenvalues >1 explained 69.143% of total variability. PC1 was mainly influenced by plant height, number of nodes per plant, pod bearing length, number of pods per plant, number of effective pods per plant, biological yield and seed yield per plant. PC2 was defined by harvest index and number of seeds per pod, while days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, number of primary branches per plant and number of effective nodes per plant were the dominant traits in PC3. PC4 was mostly affected by the trait weight of 100 seeds. Pod length was the main trait in PC5. Genotypes Pant P243, Ambika, Adarsh, Pant P-554 and IPFD 11-5 were identified as promising.