GENETIC DIVERGENCE AND CHARACTER ASSOCIATION IN SESAME (Sesamum indicum L.)

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Date
2008
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ACHARYA N. G. RANGA AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY, RAJENDRANAGAR, HYDERABAD
Abstract
In the present investigation, fifty three genotypes of sesame were evaluated for genetic divergence, genetic variability, character association and path coefficient analysis. The experiment was laid out in a randomized block design with three replications during kharif 2006, at College farm, College of Agriculture, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad. Analysis of variance indicated the existence of significant genotypic differences for all the thirteen characters. Among the genotypes studied Swetha Thil, YLM-17 and YLM-11 showed high mean performance for seed yield as well as for most of the yield components. Genetic divergence studies by Mahalanobis’s D2 analysis indicated the existence of significant diversity in fifty three sesame genotypes which were grouped into eight clusters. The characters chlorophyll content, number of capsules per plant, plant height and days to maturity contributed maximum towards genetic divergence. The clusters I, II, VII and VIII recorded high mean values for seed yield and they were highly divergent from each other. Hence, crosses made between genotypes selected from the clusters I, II, VII and VIII are recommended to obtain increased productivity as well as to exploit maximum heterosis. The studies of genetic variability revealed high phenotypic and genotypic coefficients of variation, heritability and genetic advance as per cent of mean for number of capsules per plant, plant height, number of seeds per capsule and days to 50 per cent flowering indicating that simple selection can be practiced for improving these characters. Character association studies indicated the highly significant positive correlation of oil content, harvest index, 1000-seed weight, number of seeds per capsule, number of effective primaries per plant, number of capsules per plant, chlorophyll content and capsule length with seed yield and among themselves. Hence, improvement of these characters would simultaneously improve the seed yield. Path coefficient analysis revealed that harvest index and number of seeds per capsule were the important attributes in formulating selection criterion for effective improvement of seed yield.
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GENETIC, DIVERGENCE, CHARACTER, ASSOCIATION, SESAME
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