A Study on Genetic Variability, Character Association and Path Co-Efficient Analysis on Morphological and Yield Attributing Characters of Taro [Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott]

Abstract

The study investigated genotypic and phenotypic co-efficients of variation, heritability, genetic advance at 5% selection intensity and in percentage of population mean of nine characters (plant height, leaf number, length and width of leaf lamina, number and weight of cormels per plant, weight of corm per plant, dry matter percentage in the tubers and tuber yield per from 14 cultivars of taro [Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott]). Results indicated highest genotypic co-efficient of variation for dry matter percentage (47.91), which was 95.78% of the phenotypic co-efficient of variation, whereas tuber yield per plant showed the widest range (819.37). Number of cormels per plant and dry matter percentage exhibited considerably higher heritability (84.90% and 91.70%, respectively) and genetic advance (81.19 and 79.00, respectively), indicating the potentiality of selection for improvement of such characters. These two characters were found to be positively correlated to tuber yield per plant. Path analysis revealed that weight of cormels per plant possessed the highest direct effect on tuber yield, indicating the importance of selection based on this character to increase tuber yield per plant.