Search

Fourty-eight ashwagandha [Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal] genotypes were studied for the genetic variability, heritability and trait association during 2018-19 based on 13 yield and quality traits. For all the 13 characters studied, highly significant (P < 0.01) differences were observed. Parameters such as withanolides, dry root yield per plant and crude fibre recorded higher estimates for GCV and PCV. High broad sense heritability and genetic advance were recorded for number of primary and secondary branches, number of berries, root length, number of secondary roots, fresh and dry root yield, starch, crude fibre and withanolides. These proved to be promising traits that would respond to selection of better genotypes owing to their high transmissibility and genetic variability. Character association study indicated that dry root yield had positive and significant association with the number of primary and secondary roots, fresh root yield and withanolides at both genotypic and phenotypic levels. Path analysis revealed that number of secondary roots and withanolides were major traits having high positive, direct effect and significant association with dry root yield. Hence, these traits would be quite effective when selected to improve dry root yield in ashwagandha. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding genetic variability patterns of turmeric yield traits is essential to develop new genotypes with improved traits. The objective of the present study was to investigate the genetic variability, heritability, genetic advance and association of various yield components in turmeric genotypes. The experiment was conducted for two seasons during 2021-22 and 2022-23 using 21 turmeric genotypes at ICAR-IISR, Experimental farm, Peruvannamuzhi, Kerala. The results indicate that the genotypes exhibited significant variation across two seasons for most traits, with the exception of collar girth, weight of primary rhizomes per clump, and number of primary rhizomes per clump, which suggests the presence of genetic variability in the genotypes. Maximum fresh rhizome yield per clump was recorded in the genotype, IISR Pragati. The Genotypic Coefficient of Variation (GCV) was found to be moderate to high for most of the traits except plant height, leaf lamina length, collar girth and fresh rhizome yield per plant, whereas, Phenotypic Coefficient of Variation (PCV) was found to be moderate to high for all the traits except plant height. Heritability was observed moderate to high for all the traits except collar girth, number of primaries per clump, weight of primary rhizomes per clump and fresh rhizome yield per plant. The petiole length, total leaf area, weight of mother rhizomes per clump and number of mother rhizomes per clump showed high heritability along with genetic advance. Correlation analysis suggested that weight of mother rhizomes per clump had a strong positive association with plant height, number of leaves, leaf lamina length, leaf lamina width, leaf area, total leaf area, and collar girth and had a weak positive relationship with fresh rhizome yield per plant and petiole length. The path analysis revealed, total leaf area, fresh rhizome yield per plant and number of primaries per clump have high direct positive effects with weight of mother rhizomes per clump. The high heritability and genetic advance observed for above mentioned traits suggest that exercising a simple selection could indirectly improve the low heritable, low genetic advance traits such as fresh rhizome yield per plant as indicated by correlation and path analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study was carried out to assess the genetic variability and association among yield attributing traits in 60 different safflower genotypes over six environments. The pooled analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that all attributes had a considerable degree of variation. The pooled analysis of variability parameters revealed that the phenotypic coefficients of variation (PCV) was higher than the genotypic coefficients of variation (GCV)for all of the characteristics evaluated, indicating that experimental variance contributed to total variation. Petal yield/plant and seed yield/plant had the highest PCV and GCV followed by number of capitula/plant, number of seeds/capitula, height of insertion of first branch, hundred seed weight, number of primary branches/plant, length of longest primary branches, number of secondary branches and height up to main capitula. Number of capitula/plant, seed yield/plant, petal yield/plant, height of insertion of first branch, number of seeds per capitula, hundred seed weight, number of primary branches/plant, length of the longest primary branches, number of secondary branches, height upto main capitula, capitulum diameter and plant height all had high heritability and genetic advance as percent of mean. Seedyield/plant showed positive, significant and directcorrelation with number of capitula/plant, number of seeds/capitulum, height up to the main capitulum, plant height, number of primary branches/plant, capitulum diameter, and hundred seed weight. Number of capitula/planthad the maximum direct effect on grain yield/plant followed by number of seeds/capitulum, hundred seed weight and petal yield/plant. Hence selection of these traits would improve seed and petal yield in safflower breeding program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eight parents and the 28 crosses of Indian Mustard (Brassica juncea (L.) Czern & Coss.) in two segregating generations, viz., F2 and F3 were studied for their genetic variability during the rabi seasons of 2020-21 and 2021-22, respectively. Observations were recorded for six morphological characters such as plant height (cm), primary branches per plant, secondary branches per plant, siliquae per plant, 1000 seed weight (g) and seed yield per plant (g). The PCV was found to be greater than the GCV and the difference between them was high in all the characters in both F2 and F3 generations. Most of the characters revealed a medium range of GCV and PCV. Moderate heritability was expressed by all the characters except primary branches per plant in F3 generation. The Genetic Advance as a percentage of Mean (GAM) was higher in most characters except in plant height. The character plant height was found to be positively correlated with seed yield per plant in both F2 and F3 generations, with secondary branches per plant in the F3 generation and negatively correlated with primary branches per plant in F3 generation. A high direct effect on seed yield per plant was exhibited by plant height and 1000 seed weight in both F2 and F3 generations and by Secondary branches per plant in the F2 generation and Siliquae per plant in the F3 generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Selection criteria is very crucial to pick up promising genotypes in a breeding program. An experiment was conducted with twenty soybean genotypes following a randomized complete block design to study the inheritable agronomic traits, their interrelation and partitioning of genotypic correlation into direct and indirect effects to identify the traits responsible for higher seed yield. Results indicated that phenotypic variance was higher than that of genotypic variance for all the characters. The highest PCV was found for the trait seed yield per plant (39.03%) followed by yield per plot (32.85%). The higher GCV was also found for the same traits-seed yield per plant (37.36%), yield per plot (27.23%). PCV and GCV was the lowest for trait days to maturity (6.28%, 4.16%) and days to flowering (3.20%, 2.24%). Estimated broad sense heritability was ranged from days to flowering (44.05%) to seed yield per plant (91.62%). Higher estimate of heritability was also observed for yield per plot (88.65%) followed by hundred seed weight (85.39%) whereas; heritability was moderate for plant height (76.75%) and pod per plant (70.17%). The genetic advance was the highest for plant height (19.39%). On the other hand, primary branch per plant, days to flowering and days to maturity showed low heritability with low GA depicts the influence of non-additive gene effect. Pod per plant, hundred seed weight, days to maturity and plant height is positively and significantly correlated with yield. Pod per plant (0.908) and hundred seed weight (0.907) showed highest direct positive effect on seed yield at genotypic level. Path analysis also confirmed highest positive direct effect of hundred seed weight (0.701). So, the present study suggests that, higher hundred seed weight and pod per plant can be effective selection measure for improvement of soybean yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current research was aimed for estimation of variability parameters, heritability, genetic advance, skewness, kurtosis, association and path coefficient analysis for twelve traits using F2 population attained from the cross ADT (R) 48 x Kavuni. High GCV and PCV, higher range of heritability adjoined with eminent genetic advance as per cent of mean besides significant positive skewness for the characters namely; the number of tillers per plant, the number of productive tillers per plant, the number of grains per panicle, the number of filled grains per panicle and single plant yield was observed indicating the predominance of cumulative gene effect and an effective selection. High positive direct impact with strong positive correlation on single plant yield was observed in the traits, the number of tillers per plant and the number of filled grains per panicle perhaps to be considered as useful traits in yield improvement. The information obtained from the current study may be advantageous in the selection and for the advancement of yield in future rice breeding programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]