Inheritance of Agronomic Traits and Their Interrelationship in Mungbean(Vigna radiata(L.) Wilczek)

A study was conducted to observe the variation and inheritance of agronomic traits and their interrelationship in mungbean. The objective of the study was to compare agronomic traits and hardseed percentage of 268 recombinant inbred lines(RILs) developed from the cross between wild Vigna subspecies sublobata "ACC 41" with the mungbean cultivar "Berken". The RIL population and their parents were evaluated under controlled conditions in a glass house at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. The results showed significant differences among the RILs and among the parents in all traits under study. Berken had a longer flowering date and a higher seed weight per plant, but less total leaf number and pod number per plant than ACC 41. A germination test between papers revealed that ACC 41 was 100% hard-seeded and did not germinate at all, while Berken germinated up to 100%. Their RILs distributed well between 0 to 100% hardseed. Upon scarification, all hardseed germinated within seven days. Narrowsense heritability estimates of total leave number, hardseedness, pod length, and pod width were highly heritable at 89.9, 98.9, 93.7, and 93.2%, respectively. The heritability of seed weight per plant and number of seeds per plant were lower at 63.1 and 58.4%, respectively. Seed weight per plant showed positive transgressive segregation when compared with ACC 41 and a positive correlation with 100 seed weight. While the number of seeds per pod showed a negative transgressive segregation when compared with Berken and a negative correlation with pod length and pod width. The RILs gave a 1:1 segregation ratio in leaflet shape, growth habit, and growth pattern, indicating that these traits were controlled by a single dominant gene.