Study on character association and path analysis in summer groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.)

Abstract

The thirty elite genotypes of groundnut were evaluated in randomized block design for variability, heritability and genetic advance during summer, 2011. The Observations were recorded on fifteen characters. The results of analysis of variance revealed, that the differences among genotypes were highly significant (P<1) for all studied traits. The PCV and GCV estimates were higher for number of mature pods per plant, dry pod yield per plant, fresh pod yield per plant and fresh fodder yield per plant. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance was observed for fresh biomass per pant, fresh fodder yield per plant fresh pod yield per plant and dry biomass yield per plant. The association between dry pod yield per plant and other quantitative characters showed significant and positive correlation with number of mature pods per plant, dry biomass, number of pegs per plant, fresh pod yield per plant, fresh biomass, fresh fodder yield per plant and immature pods per plant. Path coefficient analysis revealed that traits viz. dry biomass, fresh fodder yield, number of mature pods and fresh pod yield per plant exhibited high direct effect as well as strong association with dry pod yield per plant indicating true and perfect relationship between them. On the basis of relative contribution the fresh biomass, plant height dry pod yield, fresh pod yield, fresh pod yield, plant spread were the main characteristic contributing to the genetic divergence. However, ten elite genotypes were identified as the best performance and potent parent for further hybridization programme as listed below. JL-501, JALW-30, SB-XI, TAG-24, JAL-42, KDG-123, KDG-128, KDG-142, KDG-156, KDG-160 and KDG-171.