Author(s):

C Rajamanickam and K Rajmohan

Abstract: The present experiment on Genetic variability and correlation studies on triploid ecotypes of banana (Musa spp.) was conducted at College of Agriculture, Vellayani, Thirtuvananthapuram to determine the variability, heritability, genetic advance and correlation for their eighteen morphological and quality traits. The genotypic and phenotypic coefficient of variance, heritability and genetic advance were estimated for eighteen traits which included plant height, pseudostem height, number of suckers per plant, leaf width, days taken from planting to shooting, total crop duration, bunch weight, hand weight, number of fingers per bunch, number of fingers per hand, length, girth, weight and volume of finger, ripe fruit weight, sugar/acid ratio and pulp weight. A remarkable variability was observed among the collections for these characters. The high magnitude of PCV and GCV were recorded for number of fingers per bunch, ripe fruit weight, pulp weight, sugar: acid ratio, finger weight and number of suckers per plant. All the characters showed higher estimates of broad sense of heritability whereas genetic advance was recorded very high in bunch weight, followed by finger weight, ripe fruit weight, pulp weight and number of fingers per bunch. The value of high PCV, GCV, ECV, heritability and genetic advance make it a prime character for the direct selection. Bunch weight, number of fingers per bunch, weight of fingers and ripe fruit weight showed the high heritability coupled with high genetic advance are the important characters which have to be considered for selection of the clones. Regarding correlation studies, bunch weight had significantly positively correlated with plant height, psuedostem girth, number of leaves per plant, leaf width, days taken for planting to flowering, number of fruits pr bunch, number of fruits per hand and hand weight.

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