PERFORMANCE OF GERBERA (Gerbera jamesonii L) GENOTYPES

Abstract

11 l::-.pc1 i111c11l "as comluctcd Lo L'\ alu.uc the performance 01· gcrbcra !;;L'llot,:- J)L'' .ti I I• 1t •l ultun . .: Division, Horticulture Research Centre, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute, Joydcbpur, Gazipur during the period from September 2004 to March 2005. The experiment consisted of fifteen different gerbera genotypes viz., GJ-01, GJ-02, GJ-03, GJ-04, GJ-05, GJ-06, G.1-07, GJ- 08, G.J-09, GJ-10, GJ-11, G.J-12, GJ-013, GJ-14, and GJ-15 and laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. Vegetative and floral trails were significantly varied for all the genotypes. Among the different genotypes, G.l-02, GJ-11 and GJ-13 were superior for their better vegetative and floral characters to other genotypes. The characters plant height, number of side shoot per hill, number of flower per plant, stalk diameter and vase life exhibited high heritability (90.37%, 74.58%, 65.71 %, 93.94% and 83.66% respectively) accompanied by high genetic advance (44.10%, 53.21 %, 48.43%, 92.61 % and 46.88% respectively). These characters had also shown medium to high genoiypic and phenotypic coefficients of variation. Days to flower displayed the lowest heritability (32.96%1) and genetic advance (5. 74%), genotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variation were also the lowest. ln general, genotypic correlation coefficients were found to be high than their corresponding phenotypic ones. The characters plant spread, number of side shoot per hill, number of flower per plant, tlower size, stalk diameter and vase life showed significant positive correlation with spike length. Path coefficient analysis suggested that plant spread contributed maximum (0.84) to spike length through positive direct effect. umber of leaves per plant, number or side shoot per hill, flower size, stalk diameter and vase life had also positive direct effect (0.08, 0.70, 0.23, 0.69, and 0.009 respectively) on spike length.