Inheritance and Stability of some Agronomic Traits of African Yam Bean (Sphenostylisstenocarpa (Hochs t ex. A. Rich) Harms)

African yam bean (AYB), Sphenos tylis s tenocarpa, an indigenous African pulse has immense nutritional significance. The unders tanding of inheritance pattern and s tability s tatus of agronomic trait is primary to their genetic improvement. Thirty AYB genotypes were evaluated for 100 seed weight (100SW), seed weight per pod (SWP), days to 50% flowering (D50F) and days to seedling emergence (DSE) in a randomized complete block design of three replications. This s tudy was conducted at Ibadan, Ikenne, Mokwa and Ubiaja in Nigeria. Genotypic variation was significant (p ≤ 0.05) for all characters except DSE. Location and Genotype x Location interactions were significant (p ≤ 0.05) for the four characters. D50F had the leas t genotypic and phenotypic coefficient of variation (GCV and PCV) of 10.26% and 11.05% , respectively. The highes t GCV, PCV and genetic advance occurred in SWP at 34.55%, 37.88% and 64.94% , respectively. Broad sense heritability ranged between 77.61% (DSE) to 89.07% (100SW). Repeatability was highes t (13.83%) in 100SW. The performance of TSs87, TSs91 and TSs125 was highly significant for DSE and 100SW. The joint regression analysis identified TSs24 and TSs82 as the mos t s table genotypes for DSE and SWP with regression coefficient (bi) of 0.94 and 0.97 and deviation from linearity (Sdi 2) of 0.028 and -0.028 respectively. The mos t s table genotypes for D50F and 100SW were TSs61 and TSs84 with b = 1.015 and 1.017 respectively. The s tudy revealed potential breeding values of four agronomic traits in AYB.