1770 Trends in Biosciences 8 (7), 2015 Correlation Analysis in Mungbean Under Irrigated and Moisture Stress Conditions G. GOVARDHAN 1 , K. HARIPRASAD REDDY 1 , D. MOHAN REDDY 1 , P. SUDHAKAR 2 AND B.V. BHASKARA REDDY 3 1 Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, S.V. Agricultural College, Tirupati 517502, A.P. 2 Department of Crop Physiology, RARS, Tirupati 517502, A.P. 3 Department of Plant Pathology, RARS, Tirupati 517502, A.P. Trends in Biosciences 8(7), Print : ISSN 0974-8, 1770-1774, 2015 ABSTRACT Fifty eight mungbean genotypes were evaluated under both irrigated (E 1 ) and moisture stress (E 2 ) conditions to know the relative efficacy of yield components and drought related traits. Correlation analysis indicated that seed yield per plant was significantly and positively associated with harvest index, number of pods per plant and relative water content under both E 1 and E 2 . Further, seed yield was significantly and positively associated with days to 50 per cent flowering, number of pods per cluster in E 1 and plant height in E 2 . Owing to the highly significant positive association that existed between seed yield per plant with number of pods per plant, harvest index, relative water content under both E 1 and E 2 , it can be suggested that simultaneous selection for these traits might bring an improvement in seed yield per plant coupled with water use efficiency. Key words mungbean, drought, correlation, yield, yield attributes and drought related parameters Mungbean is one of the important pulse crop after pigeonpea and chickpea. India is the world’s largest producer, consumer and importer of pulses as they are the major protein source in the vegetarian diet. In India, mungbean occupies an area of 37.8 lakh hectares with a production of 16.6 lakh tonnes and productivity of 439 kg ha -1 (AICRP on MULLaRP annual report 2010-2011). Government of India imported nearly 0.3 million tones of mungbean to feed the people (India stat, 2013). Hence, there is a great demand for increased productivity through better understanding of constraints in its production. The low production may be due to various biotic and abiotic factors. Among the abiotic factors, drought is a major determinant causing tremendous yield losses and low crop productivity globally. Drought stress inhibits the photosynthesis of plants by causing changes in chlorophyll content and reducing relative water content. Genetic improvement in mungbean for drought resistance requires investigation of possible physiological traits related to drought along with yield and exploitation of their genetic variation. To evolve suitable genotypes for drought, information on the genetic relation between yield, yield components and drought related parameters is very essential. As most of the studies done in mungbean have been confined to yield attributes, the present study was under taken to estimate correlation for yield, yield components and drought related parameters in mungbean. MATERIALS AND METHODS Fifty eight mungbean genotypes were evaluated for yield, yield attributes and drought related traits during kharif, 2012 at dry land farm, Sri Venkateswara Agricultural College, Tirupati, Andhrapradesh, India. The experimental material was sown in two sets simultaneously in field as well as under rainout shelter by adopting augmented block design -II (Federer, 1956) having 6 blocks and 4 checks. Each entry was sown in single row of plot of 3 m length, with a spacing of 30 cm between the rows and 10 cm between the plants. Sufficient irrigation was provided for one set in field condition whereas moisture stress was imposed to the crop under rainout shelter. Rainout shelter was utilized to impose moisture stress as well as to avoid natural precipitation. The E 1 represents irrigated condition and E 2 represents moisture stress condition in the present study. The crop under rainout shelter was imposed to moisture