Abstract

One hundred and one long duration pigeonpea entries were evaluated against pigeonpea podfly, Melangramyza obtusa Malloch, damage, at National Pulses Research Centre, Vamban. The biometric observations viz., pod and seed characters were correlated with podfly damage. The results revealed that the podfly damage exerted a negative association with pod length and number of grains per pod and positive association with pod width, grain length and width. About 37 per cent of the variation in the damage was influenced by pod and seed characters. Hence it may be concluded that pigeonpea types having small seed and lengthy pods with more number of grains per pod had low damage and these characters may be used for resistance breeding programme.

Keywords: Pigeonpea podfly damage, Pod and seed characters, Resistance breeding programme.