Morphological Evaluation of the Local Genotypes of Broad Bean (Vicia faba L.) for Yield Attributes under the Nilgiris Condition

The broad bean (Vicia faba L.) is the predominant and oldest domesticated cool-season food legume in the world next to chickpea and pea. The present study was carried out to evaluate the performance of 20 broad bean accessions (named from Vf 1 to Vf 20) in Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu, India conditions. It was developed in randomized block design with three replications during the year 2022. Observations on quantitative traits viz., plant height (cm), number of branches per plant, days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, pod length (cm), pod width (cm), number of pods per cluster, number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod, 100 seed weight (g), seed yield per plant (g) and pod yield per plant (g) were recorded fo-r each genotype. Substantial genotypic variations were observed for all attributes under investigation. Based on the mean performance, the genotypes Vf 2 (273.67), Vf 8 (245.83) and Vf 1 (234.67) have recorded the highest green pod yield per plant, outperforming all other genotypes. Their outstanding performance in terms of number of branches per plant, pod length, number of pods per cluster, number of pods per plant, and 100-seed weight was the major factor contributing to their superiority in terms of yield. Since the genotypes show wide range of variation for all the traits taken under study, they can be effectively utilized in breeding programmes for varietal development in broad bean.