A Study on the Genetic Variability and Genetic Control of the Important Morphometric Characters of Curcuma aeruginosa Roxb.

Abstract

Curcuma aeruginosa Roxb., the pink and blue ginger is an underutilized rhizomatous herb used in the Indian as well as Thai and Malaysian systems of traditional medicine.Its antioxidant and nutraceutical properties have also been explored recently. However, no effort has been made to study the genetic variability and genetic control of the agronomic morphometric characters of this species. Hence the present study was carried out to analyse the genetic variability and genetic control of such characters in the species.All the fifteen morphometric characters showed continuous distribution indicating their polygenic control. Among the growth characters, plant height, leaf length, leaf breadth and leaf area showed accumulation of higher number of dominant alleles in their gene pool and number of tillers and number of leaves per tiller showed higher accumulation of recessive factors. Among the yield characters, length of primary fingers and length of secondary fingers showed a balanced distribution of genotypes, number of primary fingers, number of secondary fingers, diameter of primary tillers, length of mother rhizome and yield per plant showed skewness towards the assembly of higher number of recessive factors and diameter of primary fingers and diameter of secondary fingers showed skewness towards the assembly of dominant contributing factors. However, all the characters under study showed comparatively wide distribution of factor combinations, indicating the broad genetic base of the population under study. However, most of the agronomically important characters showed very low frequency of genotypes with higher number of dominant factors indicating the necessity of selecting superior genotypes to develop improved varieties.