Estimation of variability, genetic divergence, correlation studies of Curcuma caesia Roxb.

Abstract

Curcuma caesia belonging to Zingiberaceae family is considered as an endangered plant. It has many medicinal properties which can cure different health disorders and due to its potential pharmaceutical and industrial applications, conservation of this species is required. In this present investigation, morphological diversity, Mahalanobis D2 analysis, correlation, path analysis and association study for ten agronomical traits among 78 germplasm of Curcuma caesia were studied. Results revealed that value of phenotypic co-efficient of variation was higher than the genotypic co-efficient of variation due to non additive gene action. Genotypic and phenotypic correlation coefficient revealed that plant height is significant and positively correlated with number of tillers per plant, leaf length, leaf width, days to maturity. It also showed that leaf length is significantly correlated with leaf width, days to maturity and number of mother rhizome is significant and positively correlated with number of primary rhizome. Path coefficient analysis matrix showed that number of secondary rhizome exhibited maximum direct effect followed by number of mother rhizome on rhizome yield per plant. Number of secondary rhizome exhibited strong positive correlation with rhizome yield per plant which was mainly due to direct effect and indirect effect via number of primary rhizome, leaf width, leaf length and plant height. High heritability h2BS (72.9 %) coupled with high genetic advance (70.7 %) was found in rhizome yield/plant. Selection of rhizome yield/plant may be effective for identification of high yielding genotypes among the population. Mahalnobis Euclidean Distance (MED) grouped all the genotypes into nine clusters. It was seen that the inter cluster distance is more as compared to the intra cluster distance which indicates that there is high genetic diversity in the genotypes. The dendrogram were prepared using Tocher method also corresponded to Mahalanobis Euclidean Distance. To the best of our knowledge, till date variability, genetic diversity, path analysis, correlation, association study in C. caesia has not been reported, and this is the first report on this important medicinal plant. This study would help in identification of selection criteria of C. caesia for crop improvement through various breeding programme and in germplasm conservation also.