Abstract
Many research works have been done on black cumin focusing on its nutritional and medicinal properties. But, there is inadequate information on the association of yield and yield-constituting traits of black cumin to improve its production. Therefore, correlation analysis was made on thirty-six black cumin accessions evaluated at Jimma in simple lattice design during 2016, to quantify the relationship between traits. The result of the analysis showed that seed yield ha−1 had positive and highly significant correlation with number of effective capsules (0.88), secondary branches (0.73), plant height (0.72), total branches (0.71), steam thickness (0.58), primary branches (0.52), tertiary branches (0.52), harvesting index (0.47), and biological yield (0.43). Path coefficient analysis revealed that harvesting index, biological yield, and number of effective capsules exerted high and favorable direct contribution to seed yield at phenotypic level, whereas harvesting index, biological yield, primary and tertiary branches, number of effective capsules, and stem thickness showed positive direct effect at genotypic level. The favorable direct effects of these traits on grain yield indicate that keeping other variables constant, improvement of these traits will increase black cumin yield. Therefore, these traits should be kept in mind in the future breeding program of black cumin.
Highlights
Black cumin (Nigella sativa L.) belongs to the Ranunculaceae family in the order of Ranales, which is a large family containing about 70 genera and over 300 species
Irty-six black cumin accessions were used as an experimental material; these thirty-three accessions were kindly provided by Institute of Biodiversity Conservation (IBC) which were collected from different regions of Ethiopia
Days to emergence highly correlated with days to harvest (0.34∗∗) and significantly correlated with biological yield (0.28∗) and 50% flowering date (0.23∗)
Summary
Black cumin (Nigella sativa L.) belongs to the Ranunculaceae family in the order of Ranales, which is a large family containing about 70 genera and over 300 species. It is classified under the 14 species of annual herbs in the genus Nigella [1]. It is originated in Egypt and East Mediterranean; the cultivation of black cumin can be traced back more than 3,000 years [2]. In Ethiopia, it is commonly used as ingredient in different homemade food items such as Berbere (local spice of stew), bread, and katicala (local alcoholic beverage) and as preservative for butter [10]. is age-old practice of using plant resources in traditional medicines still exists in the rural areas of Ethiopia
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