International Journal of Horticulture, 2017, Vol.7, No. 7, 47-53
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2 Results and Discussion
In the present investigation both genotypic and phenotypic correlation were worked out to find out the association
between dry fruit yield of plant and its component traits (Table 2; Table 3). The correlation coefficient revealed
that the dry fruit yield was significant and positively correlated at both genotypic and phenotypic levels with plant
height; number of primary branches plant
-1
, leaf area, number of fruits plant
-1
, pedicel length, fruit girth, fruit
weight, number of seeds fruit
-1
, 1000 seed weight, capsanthincontent and green fruit yield indicating high
heritable nature of the characters. These results were in consonance with early workers (Ibrahim et al., 2001);
Sreelathakumary and Rajamony (2002); Bhradwaj et al. (2007) and Manna and Paul (2012). However days to first
flowering, days to fruit initiation and days to final harvest showed non-significant negative correlation with dry
fruit yield. Though this association showed negative correlation but these characters should be taken into
consideration for improvement of chilli crop for earliness.
The results also showed that there was no much difference between genotypic and phenotypic correlations among
characters studied. This indicated that the influence of environment had least effects. So, one can relay their
selection on phenotypic values. Dry fruit yield plant
-1
is the combination of many characters and were
polygenically controlled. For such traits, direct selection is difficult. Therefore, selection for any of these highly
associated traits with dry fruit yield plant-1 will indirectly help in selecting the plants or genotypes with high yield.
However in the present study, apart from the higher estimates of genotypic correlation observed for the above said
eleven characters which were positively correlated with dry fruit yield directly, the other characters plant height,
fruit length, pedicel length, fruit girth and capsaicin had inter correlated with dry fruit yield. The results were in
agreement with the findings of Leaya Jose and Abdul Khader (2002), Mallikarjun et al. (2003), Nandadevi and
Hosamani (2003) and Prabhudeva (2003) who also noticed positive association of number of branches and
number of fruits plant
-1
with dry fruit yield plant
-1
. The vitamin C content was negatively inter correlated with
plant height, number of primary branches, leaf area, number of fruit, pedicel length, fruit length, fruit girth and
number of seeds but positively with fruit weight and 1000 seed weight.
Path coefficient analysis revealed that the number of fruit plant
-1
had maximum positive direct effect on dry fruit
yield in chilli followed by days to first flowering, green fruit yield, number of seed fruit
-1
and days to final harvest
(Table 4). As such these economic characters as well as earliness would have contributed direct influence on dry
fruit yield therefore greater emphasis has to be given for these characters as selection indices for improvement of
chilli. The importance of number of fruits plant
-1
has been emphasized by Korla and Rastogi (1977), Nair et al.
(1984), Leaya Jose and Abdul Khader (2002) and Prabhudeva (2003). The path analysis of the present study also
confirms the earlier studies that number of fruits plant
-1
; fruit girth and number of seeds fruit
-1
were important
traits that contributed to fruit yield.
Apart from the above said high direct positive effect of the characters on dry fruit yield, the fruit girth, pedicel
length, capsaicin, vitamin C, plant height and leaf area exhibited low to negligible positive direct effects on yield.
Due importance on these characters may also be given in selection programme for the improvement of chilli. The
growth characters such as plant height, number of branches and leaf area exhibited indirect positive effect on
number of fruits, number of seeds and green fruit yield (Leaya Jose and Abdul Khader, 2002; Verma et al., 2004).
Except the fruit length, all the economic fruit characters taken under this study had high positive indirect effect
among each other’s along with days to first fruit set towards green fruit and dry fruit yield. Regarding quality
parameters, the vitamin C exhibited low positive indirect effect with days to first flowering whereas capsanthin
content, capsaicin content showed low to moderate positive indirect effect with green fruit yield and invariably
negative effect with fruit length.
Residual effect determines how best the causal factor accounts for the variability of the dependent factor that is
dry fruit yield plant
-1
in this study. It is noted from the present study that the residual effect was 0.1345 from the
path coefficient analysis which clearly indicated that all the 18 characters taken under this investigation were
sufficient for genetical analysis in chilli. The result was in accordance with Sharma et al. (2010).
