Evaluating the presence of variability is crucial when planning a breeding program for efficient genetic improvement and promising variety development. This assessment ensures a diverse genetic pool, providing the raw material needed to select and breed individuals with desirable traits. Forty-two groundnut genotypes were evaluated for the assessment of genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance expressed as percent of mean during Kharif 2022. Analysis of variance revealed existence of quite substantial differences among the genotypes for all the characters examined. The values of GCV were slightly lower than PCV showing a minor effect of environment over all the characters. Moderate values of GCV and PCV were recorded for characters like, pod yield per plant, number of mature pod per plant, 100-kernel weight, plant height and harvest index. Harvest index, pod yield per plant and number of mature pod per plant showed the high estimates of heritability along with the high genetic advance expressed as per cent of mean, indicating the preponderance of additive gene action in governing the inheritance nature of these characters and selection for these traits would be advantageous for genetic improvement.

Genetic variability, Groundnut, GCV, PCV, Heritability, Genetic advance

From present investigation, the results of analysis of variance showed sufficient variability present among the genotypes of groundnut. High estimates of heritability coupled with high GAM was observed for harvest index followed by pod yield per plant and mature pods per plant, indicating selection for these traits would be beneficial for genetic improvement in future breeding programs. The higher mean values of the genotypes for pod yield per plant were observed for ICGV-16697 followed by IVK I 2021-6, JVB-2577 and TG-37A (Table 5) highlights the best genotypes for genetic improvement and we can used as parents in further breeding programme.

D.M. Suthar, D.G. Patel, P.R. Patel and N.V. Soni (2023). Studies on variability for Yield and Yield Attributing Traits in Groundnut [Arachis hypogaea (L.)]. Biological Forum – An International Journal, 15(11): 520-525.