CORRELATION AND PATH ANALYSIS IN SOME INDIGENOUS AND EXOTIC PROMISING CLONES OF SUGARCANE

Abstract

A study on the character association and relative contribution of different characters on' cane yield in sugarcane was conducted using 25 promising clones and two standard varieties. The characters considered were number of tiller, number of millable cane per hectare, number of millable cane per clump, stalk height, stalk girth, single stalk weight, number of green leaf. leaf length, leaf breadth, cane yield and sucrose percentage. In general, the genotypic correlations were higher than the corresponding phenotypic correlation. In most cases, there was a strong inherent relationship between the characters. The correlation coefficients between the number of millable cane per hectare, number of millable cane per clump, single stalk weight and cane yield were highly positive significant, but sucrose percentage, stalk girth, leaf length, leaf breadth and number of green leaf had significant negative correlation with cane yield. The path coefficient studies indicated that number of millable canes per hectare and single stalk weight were the most important contributors to cane yield per hectare. Hence, these two characters could be chosen as the most important selection criteria for the improvement of cane yield in sugarcane.