Tomar, Krishna SinghPatel, Rahul2022-02-012022-02-012021-10-25Rahul Patel 2021. Genetic variability studies in gladiolus (Gladiolus hybridus Hort.). M.Sc. Thesis. 112p.https://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810181491The present investigation was carried out at the instructional farm of Department of Floriculture and Landscape Architecture, College of Horticulture, Banda University of Agriculture and Technology, Banda during 2020-21 to study the variability studies in gladiolus (Gladiolus hybridus Hort). The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design (RBD) with three replications. Twenty three genotypes of gladiolus were evaluated for 27 vegetative, flowering and yield related traits to study the genetic parameters such variability, heritability, coefficient of variation, correlation and path coefficient analysis. Analysis of variance for all the traits showed significant differences among genotypes except for only one trait i.e, days taken for first floret to last floret opening in a spike for flower and yield related traits. High range in mean performance was observed for days taken to corm sprouting (8.20-24.33days), plant height (65.49-102.63 cm), stem girth(9.33- 17.17 mm), no. of spikes per plant (1.07-3.00), no. of leaves per plant (5.87-9.20), leaf length(29.10-46.77 cm), leaf width (15.76-33.22 cm), leaf area (48.22-129.86 cm2 ), days taken to spike initiation (79.20-101.17 days), days taken for color showing state (91.60- 110.48 days), no of spikes per m2 (20.00-45.00 spikes/m2 ), length of spikes (47.03-81.53 cm), rachis length (23.12-84.37 cm), weight of spike (32.54-87.33 g), no. of floret per spike (8.44-17.53), no. of days taken for 50 % flowering (102.67-120.67 days), no. of daughter corms per plant (1.27-3.33), no. of cormels per plant (12.47-46.47), diameter of daughter corms (3.46-6.43 cm) and average weight of daughter corms (28.78-85.57 g). High coefficient of variation was observed for leaf area, weight of spike and no. of cormels per plant. Higher heritability was observed for leaf area (99.65 %) followed by weight of spike (88.18%), rachis length (77.77 %), no. of florets per spike (75.39 %), stem girth (74.84%), leaf length (74.80%), girth of spike (73.54%), leaf width (73.37%), no. of cormels per plant (67.51%), no. of daughter corms per plant (67.29%), no. of shoot per plant (65.65%), average weight of daughter corms (64.43%), no. of spikes per plant (64.24%) and no. of spikes per m2 (62.19%). High values of genetic advance as percent of mean was recorded for leaf area (64.50%) followed by weight of spikes (57.39%), no. of cormels per plant (43.95%), no. of shoots per plant (42.80%), average weight of daughter corms (40.24%), no. of daughter corms per plant (37.71%), days taken to corm sprouting (37.45%), rachis length (36.18%), no. of florets per spike (33.62%), no. of spikes per plant (33.52%), leaf width (33.47%), no. of spikes per m2 (31.14%), no. of spikes per ha (29.33%), stem girth (28.87%), diameter of daughter corms (23.72%), girth of spikes (22.03%) and leaf length (33.47%). The magnitude of correlation coefficient at genotypic level was found higher than the corresponding correlation at phenotypic level. Number of spikes per plant had a positive and highly significant correlation both at genotypic and phenotypic levels with no. of shoots per plant (0.830, 0.687), leaf length (0.331, 0.239), no. of daughter corms per plant (0.703,0.532), average weight of daughter corms (0.485, 0.282), no. of spikes per m2 (1.002, 0.991) and no. of spikes per ha (1.002, 0.978). Path coefficient analysis revealed that no of spikes per m2 (0.805, 0.855) exhibited maximum positive and direct effect on number of spikes per plant at genotypic and phenotypic level followed by leaf area (0.212, 0.115), no. of spikes per ha (0.125, 0.114), girth of spikes (0.042, 0.031), no. of shoot per plant (0.041, 0.062) and no. of florets per spike (0.033, 0.035), respectively. Hence selections of these traits would be effective for flower yield improvement in gladiolus. The clustering patterns based on Mahalonobis D2 statistic indicated the existence of wide genetic divergence among genotypes for various traits studied and categorized the genotypes into five distinct clusters. The highest inter-cluster distance was observed between cluster-1 and cluster-3 (2116.5), whereas the lowest was found between cluster-2 and cluster-4 (143.00).EnglishThesis