GENETIC VARIABILITY AND CORRELATION STUDIES IN SOME GENOTYPES OF EGGPLANT

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Hort. Dept., Fac. Agric., Zagazig Univ., Zagazig Egypt

Abstract

Assessment of genetic variability is crucial in developing new genotypes with desiredyield and quality traits. This evaluation allows breeders to identify superior germplasm, breedinggenotypes with specific combinations, and enhance crop performance across diverse environmental conditions. Hence,this study aimedto study the performance of ten eggplant genotypes(Solanummelongena L.); i.e., Little Fingers (LF), Ping Tung (PT), Antigua (An), Aswad (As), Japanese White Egg (JWE), Apple Green (AG), Rotonda Bianca Stumata di Rosa (BSR), Korean Red (KR), Black Oblong (BO) and Black Very Long (BL). In addition, to explore genetic advance and correlation among studied traitsunder three intra-row plant spacings, (30, 45 and 60 cm).The study was performed at Zagazig District, Egypt during the two successive summer seasons of 2017 and 2018. The results indicated significant variation among the tested genotypes.Thebroad sense heritability (hb2) exhibited the highest percentage at narrow planting spaces and decreased with increased spaces in all studied traits. Broad sense heritabilities were moderate magnitude for number of branches (39% and 30.9%) at 45 and 60 cm spaces, respectively. Genetic advance (GA %) was high for all studied traits except number of branches. High heritability estimates and a high predicted genetic advance indicated that these qualities and genotypes could be effective in developing breeding programs to increase fruit quality and yield. Strong genetic correlations between morphological and yield-related variables were found via correlation studies. The path analysis results showed that the fruit weight had the largest direct effect on yield/ plant (2.984 and 3.11) followed by number of fruits (0.579 and 1.525), and branches number/ plant (0.161 and 0.304) at 30 and 45 cm planting spaces, respectively. While the branches number/ plant exhibited the largest direct effect on yield/ plant (5.341) followed by fruit length (3.328), and fruit diameter (0.625) at 60 cm planting space, indicating the effectiveness of direct selection for these traits for developing high yielding genotypes of eggplant under different planting spaces.

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