Correlations among Characters and Ascochyta Blight Disease Severities in Chickpea Breeding Lines

The yield and yield components, association among characters, direct and indirect effects of various characters on seed yield and Ascochyta blight disease severities of sixty-nine F sub(4) chickpea lines from FLIP 83-47CxILC 482 crossing and two parents were investigated at Diyarbakir in 1998. The chickpea lines differed significantly for all characters and minimum-maximum values and coefficient variation of % were determined for each character. The results of association among characters indicated that the seed yield/plant was correlated strongly and positively with number of pods/plant (0.64**) and number of seeds/plant (0.65**). It was also determined that there was a positive significant relationship (0.29**) between Ascochyta blight disease severity and 100 seed weight. Path analysis showed that number of seeds/plant had the greatest positive direct effect on seed yield/plant. Wide variations were observed for the mean Ascochyta blight disease severity in F sub(4) lines. Disease indices of lines changed from 5.0 to 8.9 and some lines were classified as tolerant.