CORRELATION, PATH ANALYSIS AND GENETIC DIVERSITY IN F₃ GENERATION OF Brassica napus L.

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted with 62 F₃ genotypes of Brassica napus L. at the experimental field of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka to study the correlation, path coefficient and genetic diversity analysis in f₃ generation during November 2013 to February 2014. The genotypes were found significantly different for all the characters studied. Comparatively phenotypic variances were higher than the genotypic variances for all the characters studied. The high GCV value was observed for number of secondary branches per plant (31.23) per plant. Plant height, days to 50% flowering, number of siliqua per plant, siliqua length and seed yield per plant showed high broad base heritability. The significant positive correlation with seed yield per plant was found in plant height (0.368**), the number primary branches per plant (0.332**), number of secondary branches per plant (0.382**), number of siliqua per plant (0.549**) and siliqua length (0.037**). Path coefficient analysis revealed that number primary branches per plant (0.678), number of secondary branches per plant(0.182),plant height(0.582), days to 50% flowering (0.390), days to 80% maturity (0.575) and thousand seed weight(0.289) had the positive direct effect on yield per plant. The genotypes were grouped into five clusters. The highest inter cluster distance was observed between cluster (17.392) I and IV and the maximum intra cluster distance (0.83) was found in cluster IV. Considering group distance and other agronomic performance genotypes G8, G14, G19, G21, G47 and G55 might be suggested for future hybridization program.