Factors Determining Seed Yield in Soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merrill]

An experiment was conducted during kharif 2012 with 39 genotypes of soybean collected from different AICRP centers to study genetic variability, correlation and path coefficient analysis for seed yield and its component characters. In general, PCV were higher than the GCV values for all the characters. The broad sense heritability estimates were high for days to maturity, plant height, number of pods/plant and seed yield/plant. Correlation and path coefficient analysis for seed yield/plant and its components indicated that out of 9 characters, days to maturity, plant height, primary branches and pods per plant showed positive and significant association withseed yield/plant. Plant height and primary branches had positive and significant association with pods per plant. Whereas plant height showed negative association with 100 seed weight. Path coefficient analysis revealed that number of pods per plant, seeds per pod, harvest index and100 seed weight were major characters influencing seed yield directly and indirectly.