Inheritance of days to flowering and seed weight in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) and efficiency of selection from early generation

This research was conducted to determine the genetic effects for days to flowering and seed weight in six populations (P1, P2, F1, F2, B1 and B2) obtained from crossing of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) cultivars FLIP 83-47C and ILC 482. Additive genetic effect was important for days to flowering and therefore genetic advance was thought to be possible from selection in the F2 for this character. Both the additive and dominant x dominant gene effects were important for seed weight and this indicated that selection for seed weight should better be delayed to later generations. From F2 four groups of plants (early flowering, large seeded, early flowering and large seeded and randomly selected plants) with 20% intensity were selected and advanced to F Mean days to flower of plants selected for earliness was 1.8 days earlier than the mean of the randomly selected plants. But, the mean seed weight of the plants selected for large seeds was not significantly heavier than the randomly selected plants.