PHENOTYPIC VARIABILITY AMONG AFRICAN YAM BEAN LANDRACE ACCESSIONS FROM DIFFERENT AGRO-ECOLOGIES OF NIGERIA

Abstract

The aim of this research work was to estimate the genetic variability and magnitude of the genetic components of some phenotypic traits among twenty African yam bean landraces collected from three agro-ecological zones of Nigeria. The accessions constituted the treatment which was laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications. Accession seven performed best across the three locations in terms of grain yield, while accession ten had the least performance in term of grain yield. Levels of accessions and locations were significantly different (P<0.05) from one another for the studied traits except hypocotyl length, while accession x location interaction differed significantly (though at different levels) in all the traits except hypocotyl length, number of leaves per plant and pod length. The results revealed that phenotypic coefficient of variation were higher than genotypic coefficient of variation for the traits studied. Broad sense heritability estimates were high in all the studied traits. Genetic advance as percentage values were moderate to high for all the traits. High heritability estimate values coupled with high genetic advance in the research work depicts that improvement can be made on the crop through simple selection. This study provides baseline information for improving African yam bean landrace.