Studies of genetic variability components for two seed production conditions of onion in West Bengal

Abstract

The present investigation was carried out at CRF Gayeshpur, BCKV employing 14 varieties of onions for seed production in two different conditions without storing of bulbs following randomized block design with three replications. High GCV coupled with high broad sense heritability and high genetic advance was registered for seed yield/sq.m and moderate GCV coupled with high heritability and moderate to high genetic advance was recorded for leaves/plant, scapes/plant and seeds/umbel suggesting early generation selection for improving these characters. Low GCV coupled with heritability and moderate genetic advance was recorded for length of scape and 1000 seed weight. Simple selection will not be effective to improve these characters because of their probable conditioning by non-additive gene action. Important selection indices have been framed from the studies of genetic variability and character associationship. Seed yield/sq.m itself emerged as an important selection index for improving seed yield/plant. Among the seed yield components, scapes/plant, seeds/umbel and 1000 seed weight were the most prominent characters which need to be considered during selection of genotypes for high seed yield.