HERITABILITY an‎d RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DROUGHT TOLERANCE TRAITS an‎d YIELD IN GROUNDNUTS (ARACHIS HYPOGAEA L.) UNDER DIFFERENT WATERING REGIMES

Improvement of groundnuts for drought tolerance could increase production in drought prone areas. This study aimed at determining the heritability estimates and relationship of HI and SCMR with yield and yield componentsusing 30 groundnut genotypes planted under different watering regimes, so as to speed up the selection and breeding of groundnut genotypes tolerant to drought.A completely randomized design arranged in asplit plot experiment with four replications was conducted in screen house in Morogoro, Tanzania. Data collection was done onplant height, number of pod/plant and pod yield/plant. Drought tolerant traits measured included, harvest index (HI), SCMR at 40, 60 and 80 DAS. Broad-sense heritability was calculated for HI, pod yield, number of pod/plantand SCMR. Results showed that number of pods/plant, SCMR at 60 DAS and HI were significantly related to pod yield in all watering condition. Heritability of the traits ranged from 0.22 to 0.59 with HI having highest value and number of pods lowest in WW while in WS condition heritability was generally lower from 0.04 to 0.45. Due to SCMR at 60 DAS, number of pods/plant and HI having moderate heritability and significant correlation with pod yield under water stress condition, these could be useful criteria in drought tolerance selection.