Author(s): JO Olufelo* and TO Kehinde
This study investigated the variability in agro-morphological and morphometric of 30 pigeon pea genotypes in two environments using seed image analysis. The experimental seeds were sourced from IITA, and IART, Ibadan, Nigeria and conducted in the laboratory of Plant Breeding and Seed Technology of Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria. An EPSON scanner was connected to a computer device to acquire image of the seeds and the Regent instrument was used for the image analysis, by running the custom written software WinSEEDLETM (Pro Version). For every replication, hundred seeds were placed on lighting hood. Seeds were automatically analysed by the scanner and the image of the seed was recorded by the WinSEEDLETM. The procedure was repeated three times for all the genotypes and data collected were subjected to ANOVA, mean separation was done using tukey HSD at 5% level of probability, while Principal Component Analysis (PCA) were also determined. The result showed that, seed production environment effect and genotype effect were highly significant (p<0.01) on all the seed morphometric parameters examined. Seed morphometric attributes were variable among some genotypes implying that, it should be given due consideration in seed conditioning and improvement. Genotypes NSWCC-34C, NSWCC-34b, NSWCC-50 and NSWCC-7D were identified with consistent and high seed morphometric characteristic performance for most of the attributes evaluated within and across the two seed production environments.
