Vol. 13, Issue 9 (2024)

Author(s):
Ravi Sarviya and Ramesh Patel

Abstract:
The most comprehensive study was undertaken to investigate genetic variability, character association and diversity analysis for yield and yield attributing traits in thirty maize genotypes in Randomized Block Design and observations were recorded on fifteen morphological traits. For all the traits, the analysis of variance revealed significant difference among the genotypes, which indicates presence of variation among genotypes. High GCV and PCV was observed for kernel yield per plant High heritability coupled with high genetic advance expressed in per cent of mean was found for kernel per row, cob yield and kernel yield, indicating these traits shows preponderance of additive gene action, thus selection for these traits would be beneficial. Kernel yield per plant showed positive and significance correlation with days to tesseling, days to silking, days to dry husk, cob length, kernel row per cob, kernels per row, shelling percent,100 seed weight and cob yield at genotypic and phenotypic levels, thus selection for these traits would simultaneously bring improvement in associated traits which ultimately improving the yield. Path analysis for the attributed traits showed the direct effect of days to silking, primary ear height, kernels per row, shelling percentage, oil content and cob yield per plant on single plant kernel yield. The gene divergence was assessed by D² analysis revealed that the presence of diversity among thirty genotype and grouped into seven clusters. Maximum contribution to total divergence through kernels per row contributing the higher for divergence followed by days to tesseling,100 seed weight and oil content.