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Agric. Sci. Digest, 35 (1) 2015: 13-18Print ISSN:0253-150X / Online ISSN:0976-0547

Correlation and path coefficient analysis for seed cotton yield and itscomponents in American cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.)B. Srinivas, D. Bhadru and M.V. Brahmeswara Rao

Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding,College of Agriculture, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad-500 030, India.Received: 31-01-2013 Accepted: 14-01-2014 DOI: 10.5958/0976-0547.2015.00003.8

ABSTRACTThe present study was conducted on correlation and path coefficient analysis for seed cotton yield and its component traitsin 56 crosses involving seven lines and eight testers. The results showed that number of monopodia per plant, number ofsympodia per plant, number of bolls per plant, boll weight, number of seeds per boll and 2.5% span length were positivelyand significantly correlated with seed cotton yield and the traits days to 50% flowering, uniformity ratio and micronairevalue exhibited significant negative correlation. Similarly path coefficient analysis revealed that number of bolls per plantand boll weight exhibited maximum direct effect on yield.

Key words: Cotton, Correlation, Genotypic, Path coefficient, Phenotypic, Seed cotton yield.

INTRODUCTIONCotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) is an important

commercial crop grown all over the world which is mainlygrown for its fibre. With the modernization of spinningindustry and quality conscious consumers, there is anincreased emphasis on the production of superior qualitycotton. Development of cotton varieties and hybrids havinggreater yield potential with acceptable fibre characteristicsis the main objective of cotton breeders. Seed cotton yield,its components and fibre quality characters of a plant areheritable in nature (Poehlman and Sleper, 1995) and thusgenetic improvement in all these characters through selectionand breeding is possible. Correlation coefficient analysismeasures the magnitude of relationship between various plantcharacters and determines the component character on whichselection can be based for improvement in seed cotton yieldand fibre quality. Hence, the present investigation was carriedout to find the nature of genetic correlation among variouscharacters and their direct and indirect influence on seedcotton yield of Gossypium hirsutum L.

MATERIALS AND METHODSDuring kharif (2006) 56 intra hirsutum hybrids were

developed following line x tester method involving 7 lines(CPD 420, Galama, NA 1325, L 389, IC 357063, BC 68-2and AKH 9331) as female parents and eight testers (HAG1055, LK 861, L 604, JK 344, 4084, IC 356932, LRA 5166and L 761) as male parents. During kharif (2007), all the 56hybrids along with 15 parents were raised at College Farm,

College of Agriculture, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad inrandomized block design replicated thrice each in two rowsof 5 m length with a spacing of 120 x 60 cm. Five plants atrandom were taken in each entry and data on days to 50 percent flowering, number of monopodia per plant, number ofsympodia per plant, number of bolls per plant, boll weight(g), number of seeds per boll, ginning percentage (%), 2.5 %span length (mm), uniformity ratio, micronaire value (10-6 g/in), bundle strength (g/tex) and seed cotton yield per plant(g) were recorded. The analysis of variance was carried outfollowing Panse and Sukhatme (1978). Correlationcoefficients between different characters were worked out asper Al-Jibouri et al. (1958). Genotypic correlation coefficientswere further partitioned into direct and indirect effects bypath analysis as suggested by Dewey and Lu (1959).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONThe analysis of variance revealed highly significant

differences among the genotypes for all the characters studied.The genotypic and phenotypic correlation coefficients andthe genotypic and phenotypic path coefficients showing directand indirect effects are presented in Table 1 and 2 respectively.In general higher genotypic correlation coefficients than thephenotypic correlation coefficients were observed in thepresent study which is in conformity with the findings ofDesalegn et al. (2009) who reported chief role of geneticeffects. This indicates the strong inherent association betweencharacters governed largely by genetic causes and is generallyless subjected to environmental forces.

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Volume 35 Issue 1 (2015)

TABL

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16 AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE DIGEST

Computation of correlation between yield and yieldattributing traits is of considerable importance in plantselection. In the present study seed cotton yield showedsignificant positive association with yield attributing traitsviz., number of monopodia per plant, number of sympodiaper plant, number of bolls per plant, boll weight and numberof seeds per boll indicating the increase in seed cotton yieldis due to increase in one or more of the above traits. Similarly,significant positive association of seed cotton yield wasobserved by Erande et al.(2014) for number of monopodia,number of sympodia, number of bolls and boll weight,(Farooq et al. 2014)for number of bolls and boll weight,(Vinodhana et al.2013)for number of bolls, (Ekinci et al.2010) for number of sympodia, number of bolls and bollweight, (Preetha and Raveendran 2007) for number of bollsand boll weight and Iqbal et al. (2003) for number ofmonopodia, number of sympodia, number of bolls and bollweight. The close association between yield and yieldattributing traits can be exploited in selection programmewhich might be helpful in evolving high yielding genotypes.Among the fibre quality traits, only 2.5% span lengthexhibited significant positive correlation with the seed cottonyield, similar results were obtained by Erande et al. (2014)for 2.5 % span length, whereas, uniformity ratio andmicronaire value found to exhibit negative association withseed cotton yield which might be due to the balancedcompensation of either of the trait Desalegn et al. (2009).Similarly negative association of seed cotton yield wasreported by Erande etal. (2014) with micronaire value, fibrestrength and uniformity ratio, (Ahuja et al. 2006) for 2.5 %span length, (Desalegn et al. 2009) for fibre strength anduniformity ratio, (Vinodhana et al. 2013) for 2.5 % span lengthand Rajarathinam et al. (1993) for micronaire value. Daysto 50 % flowering exhibited negative and significantcorrelation with the seed cotton yield indicating the selectionfor these traits results in improvement of high yielding andearly genotypes, on the contrary, positive and significantassociation between these two traits was reported by NarisiReddy and Ratna Kumari (2004). The characters ginningoutturn and bundle strength exhibited non-significantassociation with seed cotton yield. Similar results werereported by Dinakaran et al. (2012), Ahuja et al. (2006) andPreetha and Raveendran (2007).

Regarding correlations among the yield contributingcharacters (Table 1), the trait number of sympodia per plantexhibited significant and positive association with numberof bolls (Muthuswamy and Vivekanandan (2004),Ashokkumar and Ravikesavan (2010) and Erande et al.(2014)) and boll weight (Shanti and Selvaraj (1993) andFarooq et al. (2014) whereas, number of bolls per plant

showed significant and positive association with number ofseeds per boll. Boll weight exhibited significant positiveassociation with number of seeds per boll (Sangeetha (1998).These results clearly indicated that selection for any one ofthese traits lead to concurrent improvement of other traits aswell as seed cotton yield. Among the fibre quality traits,ginning percentage had significant negative association with2.5 % span length and bundle strength (Vinodhana et al.2013), whereas it had significant positive association withuniformity ratio and micronaire value (Erande et al. (2014).The trait 2.5 % span length showed significant negativeassociation with uniformity ratio and micronaire valuewhereas, it had significant positive association with bundlestrength. Similar findings were reported by Erande et al.(2014), Farooq et al. (2014), Vinodhana et al.(2013),Desalegn (2009) and Bharad et al. (1999). Uniformityratio exhibited significant negative association with bundlestrength (Desalegn 2009) and positive association withmicronaire value (Erande et al. 2014). The charactermicronaire value exhibited significant negative associationwith bundle strength (Preetha and Raveendran (2007)). Anegative correlation of fibre length and strength with themicronaire vale and uniformity ratio confirmed a similardirection of improvement for these traits, indicating thatstronger, longer and fine fibres could be the main target forselection in cotton. The association between yield componentsand fibre parameters revealed significant negative associationof number of bolls and boll weight with uniformity ratio,number of monopodia with ginning percentage and bollweight with micronaire value. These negative correlationsbetween yield and quality traits make the selection proceduredifficult where both the parameters have to be developedsimultaneously. Meredith and Bridge (1971) found thatlinkage was primary cause for negative correlation betweenyield and fibre quality traits and recommended inter matingto break this association. Whereas significant positiveassociation of 2.5 % span length was observed with numberof sympodia, number of bolls and boll weight indicated thatthese important yield contributing traits were a good indicatorsof 2.5 % span length improvement.

It is essential to resort to the path analysis to knowthe exact forces that are involving in the strengthening of thetotal correlation. Path analysis studies (Table 2) indicatedthat number of bolls per plant had maximum direct effect onseed cotton yield per plant, whereas number of sympodia,boll weight, number of seeds per boll, micronaire value and2.5 % span length exhibited low to negligible levels of directeffect on seed cotton yield. For the trait micronaire value, itexhibited positive direct effect on yield, but the correlationbetween these two traits is negative which is an indication of

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undesirable indirect effects which have to be nullified in orderto make use of the direct effect. Therefore, a restrictedselection model of direct selection for such traits is suggestedfor obtaining yield improvement. Similarly, Erande et al.(2014), Vinodhana et al. (2013), Preetha and Raveendran(2007), Ahuja et al. (2006), Iqbal et al. (2006), Narisi Reddyand Ratna Kumari (2004), Iqbal et al. (2003) and Hussain etal. (2000) observed positive and direct effect of one or otherof above characters on seed cotton yield, whereas days to 50% flowering, ginning percentage, uniformity ratio and bundlestrength exhibited low to negligible level of negative directeffect on seed cotton yield. Thus, these studies revealed that,the traits which had positive and direct effect on seed cottonyield should be given due to emphasis for making selectionfor high yielding genotypes. In the present study, number ofbolls per plant exhibited positive indirect effect on seed cottonyield via number of sympodia , 2.5 % span length, number ofseeds per boll and number of monopodia and negative indirecteffect via micronaire value, whereas boll weight exhibited

positive indirect effect on yield via number of seeds per boll.Among the fibre quality traits, uniformity ratio showedpositive indirect effect on yield via 2.5 % span length, whilemicronaire exhibited indirect effect via ginning percentageand uniformity ratio on seed cotton yield and negative indirecteffect via 2.5% span length and bundle strength. These resultsare in agreement with the findings of Kaushik et al. (2005)and Iqbal et al. (2006).

The results discussed above indicate that correlationand direct and indirect effect estimates vary for different traitswith variation in genetic material based on yield componenttraits and fibre properties. Hence, correlations and direct andindirect effect estimation would provide useful informationfor planning a successful breeding programme if the geneticmaterial is grouped for yield and fibre quality characters andalso it is essential to device suitable breeding methodologiesfor simultaneous improvement of both yield and qualityparameters involving three way crosses, modified backcrosses or recurrent selection.

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