Genetic Analysis of Cone and Seed Characters among Seed Sources of Deodar (Cedrus deodara (Roxb.) G.Don)

Abstract

The materials used in this study were obtained from 19 seed sources selected from different geographical areas under the species in the state of Himachal Pradesh. These 19 seed sources were evaluated for variability studies in cone and seed characters. Significant differences (p=0.05) were observed among provenances for cone length, cone diameter and seed weight indicating that a significant amount of genetic variation exists among provenances for these traits. Wide ranges in the means were exhibited for cone weight (79.4-314.40 g), No. of seed (124-230), seed weight (1.5-15.5 g) and No. of scale (120-215). In all cases the standard error were lower than their respective means. All characters were found to have positive and highly significant genetic correlation except cone length and seed weight (0.39). In all the cases genotypic correlations were larger than the phenotypic correlations. The heritability estimates were high for all traits except seed weight (16.26%). The highest values were obtained for cone weight 66.43% followed by cone length 56.73% and cone diameter 53.04%. Cone weight, which recorded highest estimate of heritability also recorded highly significant genetic correlation with all traits. Although heritability estimates in broad sense may give useful indication about the relative value of selection in the materials, heritability along with genetic gain is more useful than the heritability alone in predicting the resultant effect for selecting the best genotypes for a given trait.