Universal Journal of Agricultural Research 7(1): 32-62, 2019 http://www.hrpub.org DOI: 10.13189/ujar.2019.070105 Evaluation of Lentil Genepool for Yield and Some Yield Related Attributes Anam Nourin 1 , Aysha Kiran 1 , Sadia Kaukab 2,* , Aziz ur Rehman 2 , Muhammad Sajjad Saeed 2 , Aqsa Tahir 2 ,Gulfam Riasat 2 , Ehsan Khan 2 1 Department of Botany, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan 2 Pulses Research Institute, Ayub Agricultural Research Institute (AARI), Faisalabad, Pakistan Copyright©2019 by authors, all rights reserved. Authors agree that this article remains permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License Abstract Lentil is an important pulse crop in Pakistan which is used in combination with cereals to balance the diet. Lentil area and production is declining for the last ten year. The current study is devised to evaluate lentil germplasm for the high yield performance at the Ayub Agricultural Research Institute, Faisalabad. Hundred accessions of lentil germplasm (Lens culinaris L.) were estimated for morphological and yield related attributes. Field performance results showed that lentil lines indicated major differences for their morphological studied factors. AARI-L-540, AARI-L-302, AARI-L- 411, AARI-L-562, AARI-L-454, AARI-L-417, AARI-L- 650, AARI-L-701, AARI-L-284, AARI-L-124, AARI-L-234, AARI-L-318, AARI-L-530, AARI-L-550, AARI-L-272, genotype analyzed the maximum plant biomass, highest seed yield, 1000 seed weight, number of pods, plant height at maturity and flowering, length of reproductive phase, days to flowering and maturity, harvest index, Degree of indetermination, primary and secondary branches of plant, No of pods/plant, seed per pod, canopy temp, internode distance, no of nodes and leaves were calculated respectively. Principal component analysis statistically applied on these traits. First eight principal component analyses (PCA) expressed 88.52% of total variation in which PC I, PC II, PC III, PC IV, PC V, PC VI, PC VII & PC VIII accounted for 19.12%, 11.24%, 610.05%, 29.66%, 7.19%, 36.75%, 75.88%, 5.58% of total variation. The data was statistically analyzed to find out the superior genotype for the above mentioned character. Keywords Germplasm, Yield, AARI 1. Introduction Lens culinaris Medik, is an important Rabi-pulse crop which is mainly cultivated in rain fed areas. In Pakistan lentil is cultivated on 14.2 thousand ha with overall production 6.4 thousand tons and yield is 5.23 kg/ha in 2016-17 which is far less than other countries. In the previous years lentil area has been drastically decreased which happen due to low economic return of lentil as compared to other Rabi crops. The main reason is low yield potential of lentil varieties, in the past no serious effort have been made for genetic improvement of lentil crop. The available lentil germplasm have not been evaluated for yield and yield related traits in Pakistan while great genetic variability have been reported in literature, generally lentil germplasm grown in India is categorized as small seed, early flowering and maturing, short duration and low biological yield Erksine [3] 1998. Whereas several genotypes in micro-sperma lentil are available that are grown in long day environment with bold seed and upright growth habit Majumdar 2011, Tickoo et al, 2005 [7,12] . Seed yield is decreased with low number of pods/ plant and seeds/ pod Singh et al. [10] 2009. The varieties of small seeded lentil are more healthy in dry conditions and varieties of bold seeded lentil show better performance in cold environment Erksine [2] 1996. The lentil genotypes both micro and macro-sperma have different contribution of characters involved in yield potential. Ahamed et al. [1] 2014 reported less variation in plant height, days to flowering, days to maturity and 100 seed weight both at genotypic and phenotypic level. They reported positive correlation between grain yield and plant height. Rehman et al. [9] 2013, reported different levels of degree of indetermination in lentil germplasm. Goa [4’] 2015, observed significant yield difference among lentil genotypes. Kumar et al. [6] 2015, explained maximum variation in seed yield, plant biomass, length of reproductive phase, degree of indetermination and seeds/pod. Khatun et al. [5] 2016, showed differential in various agro-morphological characters of lentil, like harvest index, seed yield, maturity period, plant height and pods/ plant. CITE THIS PAPER [1] Anam Nourin , Aysha Kiran , Sadia Kaukab , Aziz ur Rehman , Muhammad Sajjad Saeed , Aqsa Tahir , Gulfam Riasat , Ehsan Khan , "Evaluation of Lentil Genepool for Yield and Some Yield Related Attributes," Universal Journal of Agricultural Research, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 32 - 62, 2019. DOI: 10.13189/ujar.2019.070105.