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The prevailing hue and cry situation for labour requirement to perform farm operation has forced Indian agriculture towards mechanization of farm operations so as to improve efficiency while reducing the cost of cultivation. Due to non availability of cultivars suitable for mechanical harvesting in chickpea it is manually harvested adding to the high cost of cultivation. Hence, the present investigation was carried out to estimate the genetic variability among twelve mechanical harvesting suitable genotypes including two checks. The genotypes were evaluated during Rabi 2016-17 in three different locations namely Gulbarga (L1), Bidar (L2) and Dharwad (L3) under randomized block design with three replications. The analysis of variance reveled significant difference between genotypes for all traits viz., plant height (cm), plant height from bottom to first pod bearing length (cm), primary branches, number of pods, grain yield per plant (g), 100-seeed weight and net plot yield (kg) in all the three locations indicating presence of genetic variability among the genotypes. A narrow difference between phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) and genotypic co-efficient of variation (GCV) in all three locations for all traits except number of pods in L1 indicated less influence of environment on the expression of characters. Interestingly high heritability coupled with moderate genetic advance over mean for plant height was recorded indicating preponderance of additive gene action and selection could be efficient for this trait. Among the genotypes RCBM-3 ranked top for most of the traits and showed maximum height, thus the genotypes with high heritability for plant height is suitable for mechanical harvesting.

Fusarium wilt is the major constraint in chickpea cultivation. Developing wilt resistant genotype is the most effective means of wilt management in chickpea. MABC approach was used to develop wilt resistant genotypes. Experiment was carried out to estimate genetic parameters among 10 MABC lines of chickpea including three standard checks across three locations Viz., Gulbarga (L-1), Bidar (L-2) and Dharwad (L-3). Analysis of variance for mean sum of squares for important quantitative traits such as plant height (cm), number of primary branches per plant, number of pods per plant, grain yield per plant (g), 100 seed weight (g) and net plot yield (kg) revealed significant differences between the genotypes across the locations, except for plant height in L-3 indicating the existence of considerable amount of variability among the genotypes. This was evident by larger difference between minimum and maximum range value for traits under study across the locations. Narrow difference between phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) and genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) was observed for all traits except number of pods per plant in L-1 indicating negligible influence of external environment on the expression of traits. High heritability coupled high genetic advance expressed over per cent mean (GAM) was recorded for grain yield per plant, 100 seed weight and net plot yield in L-1, 100 seed weight and net plot yield in L-2 indicating preponderance of additive gene action, simple selection could be effective for improvement of these traits. Overall the performance of the two MABC lines SA-1 and SA-2 were better across all the three locations.