evaluation of a subset of chickpea germplasm collection of ferdowsi university of mashhad seed bank ii. kabuli type chickpeas

identification of morphological, phenological and yield characteristics of genotypes is important in order to collect necessary information for available varieties and as a result selection of one or more specific traits. in this study, 73 kabuli chickpea genotypes from pulses seed bank of research center for plant sciences, ferdowsi university of mashhad, were planted in irrigated conditions at research farm of agricultural faculty of ferdowsi university of mashhad. some characteristics were measured for each accession based on chickpea descriptors, including the days from emerging to flowering, flowering to podding, flowering to maturity, plant height, leaflet length and width, number of leaflet per leaf, leaf length, leaf area, number of node per main stem, number of primary, secondary and tertiary branches, flower length, pod length, number of pod per plant, number of seeds per pod, seed color and shape, 1000 seed weight, and seed yield. the results showed that there was not difference among the genotypes for the days from flowering to maturity, so that the difference between the lowest and the highest number of days from flowering to maturity was 11 days. according to period of flowering to maturity, the majority of genotypes (64.4%) were laid in group 34-37 days and the lowest number of the genotypes (15%) was put in group of lower than 34 days. based on plant height, there was difference among the genotypes, so that the difference between the lowest height and the highest one was about 50cm and mcc706 with 67cm was the tallest genotype. seed yield in 32.8% of genotypes was more than 400 g/m2 and mcc216 with 885 g/m2 produced the highest seed yield. results of cluster test showed that genotypes fallen in five distinct clusters, that clusters four and one had the highest and lowest seed yield, respectively. in general, there was considerable diversity among kabuli chickpea genotypes regarding to assessed characteristics, so it may be possible to exploit this variation in breeding programs for improving yield of chickpea.