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Plant Gene and Trait, 2013, Vol.4, No.3, 9
-
16
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9
Research Report Open Access
Interrelationship, direct and indirect Effect of Different Component
Characters on Grain Yield in Amaranth Genotypes (
Amaranthus
hypochondriacus
) under Varied Plant Densities
S. Ramesh Kumar
1
,
G. Mohamed Yassin
2
,
R.Govindarasu
3
1. Assistant Professor, Department of Horticulture, Vanavarayar Institute of Agriculture, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Pollachi-642103, India;
2.Professor and Head, Department of Horticulture, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru College of Agriculture and Research Institute, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University,
Karaikal – 609603,U.T. of Puduchery, India; 3. Professor, Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru College of Agriculture and
Research Institute, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Karaikal – 609603, U.T. of Puduchery, India
Corresponding author email:
rameshamar06@gmail.com;
Authors
Plant Gene and Trait, 2013, Vol.4, No.3 doi: 10.5376/pgt.2013.04.0003
Received: 05 Feb., 2013
Accepted: 01 Mar., 2013
Published: 23 May, 2013
This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction
in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:
Kumar et al., 2013, Interrelationship, Direct and Indirect Effect of Different Component Characters on Grain Yield in Amaranth Genotypes (
Amaranthus
Hypochondriacus
) under Varied Plant Densities, Plant Gene and Trait, Vol.4, No.3 9
-
16 (doi: 10.5376/pgt.2013.04.0003)
Abstract
In grain amaranthus (
Amaranthus hypochondriacus
L.) ten genotypes were evaluated for twelve characters under four
plant density levels viz., very high (D
1
), high (D
2
), normal (D
3
) and low plant density (D
4
) levels to study the relationship of different
characters on yield and their direct and indirect effects. The study was conducted at College Orchard, Department of Horticulture,
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru College of Agriculture and Research Institute, TNAU, Karaikal during
kharif
2007. The results revealed that
the correlation and direct effect of component traits on grain yield were, in general, highly influenced by the plant densities both in
direction and magnitude. The fresh weight of the inflorescence, length of the primary inflorescence and number of secondary
branches per inflorescence recorded strong positive correlation with grain yield as well as strong intercorrelations among themselves,
indicating that improvement of grain yield in amaranthus could be achieved by exercising selection for these component traits. The
path analysis indicated that fresh weight of the inflorescence, leaf area at 50 per cent flowering, length of the primary inflorescence
and number of secondary branches per inflorescence had direct positive effects on grain yield. Therefore, these parameters should be
kept in mind for better planning of any improvement programme in amaranth.
Keywords
Amaranth; Grain yield; Correlation and path analysis
1 Introduction
Amaranthus
species are being cultivated since
centuries as a leafy vegetable, as well as an important
subsidiary food grain crop in many parts of the world
(Tucker, 1986). Grain amaranth serves as an alternative
source of nutrition for people in developing countries
since it is a rich and inexpensive source of protein,
vitamins and dietary fibre (Prakash and Pal, 1991;
Shukla et al.,
2003). Unlike other vegetables, grain
amaranth is cultivated during hot summer months
when no green vegetables are available (Singh and
Whitehead, 1996). Besides immense nutritional
importance, it can also be successfully grown under
varied soil and agro climatic conditions (Katiyar et al
.,
2000; Shukla and Singh, 2000). Recently, current
interest in grain amaranth resides in the fact that it has
a great amount of genetic diversity and phenotypic
plasticity. Grain amaranths is extremely adaptable to
adverse growing conditions, resist heat and drought,
has no major disease problem and is among the easiest
of plants to grow. Improvement of grain yield is the
main target of breeding program to develop amaranthus
varieties for diverse ecosystems. Population density is
a major environmental factor influencing the genetic
parameters like variability and association among the
characters. Study of the extent of such influence of
different plant density levels in these genetic
parameters is required to formulate appropriate
breeding strategies. However, grain yield is a complex
trait, controlled by many genes and highly affected by