GENETIC VARIABILITY AND HERITABILITY STUDIES IN INDIGENOUS BRASSICA RAPA ACCESSIONS

Abstract

Indigenous lines serves as an ideal germplasm for varietal development because of having broad genetic base. Current study was planned with an aim to check locally collected Brassica rapa (B. campestris, L.) accessions for genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance. The experiment was conducted at new development farm of The University of Agiculture, Peshawar during the main crop growing season of 2010-11. The experimental material consisted of ten locally collected B. rapa lines which were tested in randomized complete block design with three replications. Observations on eight quantitative parameters viz. primary branches, silique main raceme-1, main raceme length, silique length, silique width, plant height, seed silique-1, and 100 seed weight were made. Highly significant differences were observed in all traits except silique width, which showed significant variation. The highest heritability coupled with higher genetic advance was noticed in plant height which provided the evidence that this trait was under the control of additive genetic effects, while rest of the traits exhibited variable trends. Hence, it was observed that indigenous accessions have great proportion of genetic variability, which can be manipulated in future breeding programs to fully utilize their genetic potential.