Sabina George, TSheena, AKAU2019-07-022019-07-022015http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810111161PGThe investigation on “Performance analysis and combining ability studies in anthurium cultivars” was conducted at Department of Pomology and Floriculture, College of Agriculture, Vellayani during 2010 - 2013. The objectives were to evaluate introduced cultivars of anthurium for growth, flowering and floral attributes, to assess their compatibility with cultivars having breeding potential and to produce novel anthurium cultivars through inter-varietal hybridization. The study was conducted in two experiments and the results and salient findings are abstracted here. In experiment I, performance evaluation of nine introduced anthurium cultivars for growth and cut flower production was carried out. The cultivars exhibited differential responses in vegetative and floral characters. With respect to morphological characters the cultivars Marijke and Paradise had greater vegetative vigour, higher yields, larger spathes and greater vase life. Salmon Queen, Mozaik Fresh, Hillary, Cynthia and Elizabeth were moderate in vegetative vigour. Red Amour and Anastasia were short statured, lower in vegetative vigour and low yielders with smaller spathes. Variability studies indicated that phenotypic coefficient of variation was slightly higher than genotypic coefficient of variation for most of the characters indicating the greater influence of environment. Genotypic correlation coefficients were higher than phenotypic correlation coefficients for most of the characters. In experiment II, twenty one anthurium cultivars including the introduced ones were evaluated for their floral characters and from these, eight cultivars namely Paradise, Marijke, Mozaik Fresh, Lady Jane Pink, Orange Glory, Dragon’s Tongue, Lima White and Agnihotri Red were selected as parents for further hybridization. Significant differences in floral characters were noticed among the cultivars. The cultivars exhibited variations in the qualitative characters of spathe colour, texture, spadix colour and type and colour of the young leaf and petiole. Anthocyanin content of the spathe showed a gradation with variation in the intensity of spathe colour. Vase life of the cultivars ranged from 6.33 to 20.50 days. Peak pollen emergence was observed from October to January and absence of pollen was found from March to May. Combining ability analysis was carried out for 11 traits in which eight traits exhibited higher dominance variance and three traits had higher additive variance which indicated involvement of both additive and non-additive gene action in the inheritance of characters and suggested the importance of selection as well as hybridization for improvement of these characters. Marijke and Mozaik Fresh were good general combiners with respect to the characters number of fruits per spadix, percentage of fruit set, number of seeds and percentage of seed germination, Orange Glory and Dragon’s Tongue for days to seed maturity, days to seed germination, seedling survival and days from emergence to maturity of leaves and Paradise for percentage of fruit set, days for germination and leaf area. In vitro seed germination study revealed that surface sterilization with sodium hypochlorite 2 % for 15 minutes recorded the lowest incidence of contamination and highest survival percentage. Highest germination per cent and earlier leaf development were seen in full MS media without growth regulators. Seed germination in vitro and its further multiplication could reduce the time taken to develop new hybrids in large numbers. The hybrid plants in the field are in flowering, near flowering and pre flowering stages. Vegetative and floral characters of the 35 hybrids that flowered when compared with their parents, revealed variations in the parameters studied. Ten hybrids found promising based on qualitative evaluation of spathe and spadix characters in the present study can be further assessed for flower yield and cut flower attributes and selected for cultivation.ennullThesis