GENETIC VARIABILITY, CORRELATION AND PATH ANALYSIS IN F6 GENERATION OF RAPESEED (Brassica napus L.)

Abstract

The experiment was conducted at the experimental field of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka with 50 Brassica napus genotypes to study the genetic varibility, asoociation of correlation and diversity during November 2014 to February 2015. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. Analysis of variance revealed significant differences among the genotypes for plant height, branches per plant, siliqua per plant, seeds per siliqua, thousand seeds weight and seed yield per plant. The significant positive correlations of seed yield per plant were found with plant height, secondary branches per plant, siliqua per plant, siliqua length and thousand seed weight in both genotypic and phenotypic level suggesting that genotypes with high partitioning efficiency to increase seed yield per plant. Path coefficient analysis revealed that the thousand seeds weight had the greatest direct contribution on seed yield. The genotypes were grouped into four clusters. Cluster III contained the highest 16 genotypes and the cluster IV contained the lowest (6). The highest inter-cluster distance was observed between clusters I and IV indicating genotypes from these two clusters were diverse, if involved in hybridization might produce a wide spectrum of segregating population while the lowest inter-cluster distance was observed between cluster II and III. Considering group distance, seed yield per plant and other agronomic performance genotypes G4 (9906 X 205 (P1)), G34 (9908 X 9906 (P3)), G5 (9905 X 9901 (P2)), G40 (9901 X 2055 (P2)), G9 (9901 X 2066 (P2)) and G7 (9906 X 205 (P2)) might be used as open pollinated verities and need to further performance and stability test; and could be used as parents in future hybridization program.