Association studies for agronomic traits in yellow mosaic tolerant soybean lines derived from cross of resistant and susceptible parents

The present study was conducted at two locations in Punjab viz. Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana and Regional Research Station, Gurdaspur to study correlation and path coefficient analysis in 48 F_{2: 7} genotypes of soybean derived from cross of SL 525 (yellow mosaic disease resistant genotype) and JS 335 (a highly stable but YMD susceptible genotype) for nine characters i.e. plant height at 60 days and at maturity, days to maturity, number of nodes per plant, number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod, number of pods per node, 100seed weight and seed yield per plant. All the derived lines from the cross were resistant to moderately resistant for yellow mosaic disease at Ludhiana, the hot spot for YMD. Analysis of variance showed significant variation for all the traits except seeds per pod at Ludhiana. Correlation study revealed that plant height at 60 DAS, plant height at maturity and number of nodes per plant were significantly and positively correlated with seed yield at both the locations. Path coefficient analysis showed that number of pods per plant had high positive direct effect on seed yield per plant. Some variations in correlation and path coefficient analysis over locations indicated the importance of different characters under different environments for soybean yield improvement.