Impact of environment on morphometric characteristics of pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan (L.) genotypes through seed digital imaging analysis

Computer seed digital imaging was utilized in this study to evaluate the differences in seed metric traits in twenty genotypes of pigeon pea as affected by the seed production environment. InSEEDLE™ software digital imaging analysis was used to differentiate the seed metric characters. For every replication, a hundred seeds were placed on the lighting hood in such a way that the embryo axis of the seed faced the image analysis system. Seeds were automatically analyzed by the scanner and the image of the seed was recorded by the 'WinSEEDLE™'. The procedure was repeated three times. The parameters observed were seed area, straight length, curve length, straight width, curve width, width length, and seed perimeter. Data collected were subjected to analysis of variance (anova) and principal component analysis. The result revealed that the pigeon pea genotypes evaluated were highly variable in all the seed metric traits evaluated. NSWCC-34C, NSWCC-34b, NSWCC-50 and NSWCC-34 were identified with consistent and high seed morphometric characteristic performance for most of the attributes examined, hence, an important tool in selecting superior pigeon pea genotypes and could be used as parental material.