Vol. 12, Issue 1 (2023)

Author(s):
Binu NK and Santhoshkumar AV

Abstract:
Melia dubia Cav. commonly known as Malabar neem, is a fast growing indigenous species. It is put into various medicinal uses, packing cases, cigar planks etc. The evaluation of seedling progenies from twenty five plus trees were done in nursery for five months. Significant differences among the progenies of selected trees were studied for various morphological and physiological characters. The performance of the progeny of two trees from Tholpetty (Accession No. FCV-MD-03 and FCV-MD-04) were the best. The genetic analysis of the causes of variation for morphological and physiological traits were also studied. The values for phenotypic coefficient of variation ranged from 12.62 percentage for height to 24.53 percentage for biovolume. The result showed that the values for genotypic coefficient of variation were less than phenotypic coefficient of variations for the traits studied, indicating existence of environmental effect on these characters. Heritability estimates in broad sense were observed higher than 50 percentage for quantitative characters such as height, collar diameter, number of leaves, AGR and biovolume. The correlation studies on morphological and physiological characters showed that height was positively correlated with morphological and physiological characters studied except leaf temperature. This work throws light on useful information for Melia breeding, and its germplasm resource management.