Germplasm collection, evaluation and minimizing the duplications are key consideration for crop improvement, conservation and exploitation in French bean as wide variation existed in gene pool due to geographical separation. Genetic resources comprised of twenty-seven diverse French bean genotypes including primitive, commercial cultivars, local types collected from different parts of India. Seven qualitative and quantitative seed traits of genotypes were subjected to DUS morphometric test and PCA to disclose its genetic diversity present in them. The screened panel revealed wide variations among genotypes for seed testa colour, seed shape, seed coat pattern, 100 seeds weight, seed length and single seed weight. Six types of seed testa colour was observed in which brown colour was predominate (40.74%) and cuboid seed shape (44.45%) had dominance over five shapes i.e., cuboid, oval, truncate fastigate, kidney shape and truncate. The first four principal components explained 99.27% of total variability. Cluster analysis plotted 27 genotypes into five clusters based on Euclidean distance. Cluster C3 comprised of maximum genotypes (12) whereas, C1, C2, C4 and C5 contained 6, 3, 4 and 2 genotypes respectively. Seed weight contributed maximum to total variation. These findings on seed traits can be used for developing elite French bean cultivar(s) with quality seeds. Furthermore, the study will be advantageous for identifying elite genotypes useful for forthcoming cop improvement in French bean for seeds traits.

DUS, PCA, Euclidean, 100 seed weight, cuboid

Collection and characterization of germplasm for preliminary evaluation with seed traits is most crucial aspects before initiating any breeding programme. The study depicted presence of wide diversity among French bean genotypes for fourteen seed characters including quantitative and qualitative traits. Evaluation of qualitative seeds traits inferred that brown seed testa colour (40.74%), cuboid seed shape (44.45%) and absence in seed coat pattern (62.96%) were the dominant seed traits among studied genotypes. The genotypes were varied greatly for quantitative seed traits; HSW (14.95-46.52g), SSW (0.15-0.47g), SL (8.51-14.1g), SW (4.62-8.35g), ST (4.31-5.82g), L/W (1.35-2.13), W/T (0.91-1.67). The reported genetic diversity in the studied germplasm can be conserved for future crop improvement in French bean for the concerned traits.

Kartik Pramanik, G.S. Sahu, G.C. Acharya, P. Tripathy, Manasi Dash, M.R. Sahoo, A.V.V. Koundinya and M. Kumari (2022). Seed Morphometric characterization and Multivariate Analysis of French Bean Germplasm. Biological Forum – An International Journal, 14(4a): 761-771.