Genetic Variability and Heritability in Ethiopian Grasspea (lathyrus sativus l.) Accessions

Comprehensive information on genetic variability and selection parameters is very crucial to design breeding strategies. However, very limited information is available in Ethiopian grasspea germplasm. Therefore, the present study was conducted to estimate genetic variability, broad sense heritability and genetic advance; and determine scope of selection for 18 quantitative traits using 426 Ethiopian grasspea accessions. The analysis of variance showed highly significant (P < 0.0001) differences for most of the traits demonstrating the presence of high genetic diversity among the studied grasspea accessions. Higher differences between PCV and GCV estimates were observed for number of pods, effective pods and seed yield signifying the importance of environmental factors influence. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance was observed for many of agronomically important traits indicating that the high heritability is due to additive gene effects and therefore, selection can be effective for the improvement of grasspea for those traits. On the contrary, low heritability coupled with low genetic advance was recorded for number of seeds per pod indicating greater contribution of non-additive gene effects on the expression of this trait