Abstract

---

Twenty two promising new and three checks of Soybean (Glycine max L. Merrill) genotypes were grown in two successive seasons of 2014/2015 and 2015/2016 to assess the presence of variability for desired traits and amount of variation for different parameters. Genetic parameters, correlations, and partial regressions were estimated for all the traits. Analysis of variance showed significant differences among entries for all the characters. The estimates of genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) and phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) were high for grain yield per plant, biological yield and number of seeds per pod. Broad sense heritability estimates for various traits ranged from 74.62 to 99.73%. Grain yield per plant showed high significant positive genetic and phenotypic correlation with number of pods per plant and number of seeds per pod. Multiple correlations of characters (0.36), via, number of pods per plant, number of primary branches and number of seeds per pod which were significant with grain yield were far from the multiple correlations of all characters (0.96). The total variability calculated through multiple correlation in the population for yield improvement accounted by number of pods per plant, number of primary branches and number of seeds per pod was 36 % compared to 96 % accounted by all other characters. It was concluded that more number of pods per plant, number of primary branches and number of seeds per pod are major yield contributing factors in selecting high yielding soybean cultivars. Highly significant positive correlations, with the highest positive direct effect were observed for the number of pods per plant followed by the number of primary branches per plant. Therefore, the number of pods per plant and number of primary branches per plant can be considered as critical criteria for improving yield.

---