Morphological Characterization of Recombinant Inbred Lines of Soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merrill]

Morphological characterization facilitates the seed production agencies to identify the varieties on phenotypic basis by their distinguished characters. The presence of sufficient variability for various agro-morphological traits, as well as the improvement of these traithrough selection and introduction of new alleles, lines, and accessions into breeding activity from both exotic and indigenous collections, aids in the identification of potential donors. In the present study, 100 genotypes including 96 RIL (recombinant inbred lines), two parental and two national checks were planted at Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya, Jabalpur. Fourteen phenological trait viz. growth type, growth habit, flower colour, leaf size of lateral leaflet, leaf shape of lateral leaflet, leaf intensity of green colour, pod hairiness, pod: colour of hair, seed size, seed shape, seed coat colour of testa, seed coat lustre, hilum colour and hilum funicle were observed at different growth stages of plants. Among these traits, Semi- determinant growth type (97%), Semi erect growth habit (98%), white flower colour (99%), Pod colour of hair (100%) and hilum funicle same as testa (97%) were most dominating. Whereas Seed coat colour of testa [yellow (74%), yellow-green (24%) and Green (2 %)], Hilum colour [black (48%) and brown (43%) and imperfect black (9%)] and Seed shape [spherical (48%), spherical flattened (33%), flattened (16%) and elongated (3%)] were varied among genotypes.