Genotypic, phenotypic variability and evaluation of okra [Abelmoschus esculentus (L.) Moench] genotypes for yield components

Abstract

Okra [Abelmoschus esculentus (L.) Moench] is India's major vegetable crop, accounting for 60% of exports. Comparatively, Tamil Nadu has a small area of cultivation and production. Hence, the present study involves the utilizatization of simple measure of variability and genetic variance to develop new varieties. The experiment was conducted with 60 genotypes of okra crop using 20 quantitative traits. The analysis of variance found that genotypes were significant (P 0.05 and P 0.01) for all of the traits tested. The fruit yield plant-1 ranged from 176.40 to 438.40 g, with 347.42 g being the average. In all the traits studied, the phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) was higher than genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV). The closeness of PCV and GCV values suggested that the environment had little influence on manifestation of the characters under examination. GCV (1.89-13.98) and PCV (4.06-16.61) levels were found to be moderate (10-20) and low (<10), respectively, in the study. Heritability ranged from 21.73 (days to first fruit harvest) to 97.19 (plant height) percent. At 5% selection intensity, the genetic advance (GA)% mean ranged from 1.82 (days to first fruit harvest) to 27.38 (plant height). Plant height (13.68, 13.48), internodal length (16.61, 13.98), first fruiting node (13.00, 10.89), number of fruits plant-1 (13.19, 11.91), number of marketable fruits plant-1 (13.36, 11.97) and fruit yield plant-1 (13.75, 12.29) showed high heritability and high GA% mean. Thus, the above-mentioned characteristics are additive genetic control and direct selection in okra has good potential for improvement in fruit yield.

Genetic enhancement of okra [Abelmoschus esculentus (L.) Moench] germplasm through wide hybridization

“…In general, shorter fruit stalk observed in amphidiploids revealed that the gene controlling this trait has been incorporated from cultivated types. A. esculentus is reported to have fruit stalk length ranging from 1.99 to 3.00 cm (Reddy et al, 2022) and that of A. caillei ranging from 1.55 to 6.11 cm (AdeOluwa and Kehinde, 2011). However, the fruit stalk length of wild species is longer, viz., A. palianus with 4 cm (Sutar et al, 2013), A. moschatus with 6.0-15.3 cm (Yadav et al, 2014;Gangopadhyay et al, 2016), and A. enbeepeegearensis with 4.3-4.5 cm (John et al, 2013c).…”