Comparison of backcross and F2 populations for yield attributes in a cross between cicer arietinum with cicer reticulatum

Availability of variability for yield and related traits is limited in the cultivated germplasm of chickpea. So the evaluation of backcross and F2 population derived from the cross of chickpea variety GPF2 with 2 accessions of its wild relative Cicer reticulatum viz., EC556270 and ILWC21 was done for yield and related traits. A wide variation was observed for all the characters. There were progenies out yielded the parents in most of the characters. A significant increase of number of secondary branches, number of pods, number of seeds per 10 pods and yield per plant was observed in both backcross and F2 population. The linkage drag was more in F2 progenies which reduced the 100 seed weight and plant height when compared to cultivated parent. The yield improvement was more in backcross generation with reduced linkage drag when compared to F2 population in both the crosses.