Genetic improvement in glory lily (Gloriosa superba L.): A review

Abstract

Glory lily (Gloriosa superb L.) is an herbaceous perennial climber belonging to the family Liliaceae. Its tuber and seeds contain an alkaloids viz., cochicine and colchicoside; among which colchicine act as an anti-mitotic agent used for inhibiting mitotic cell division. The variability of genetic stocks could be increased by increasing the collection from diversified origin and geographical distribution. The phenotypic and genotypic variances, estimated from the total variance were used to assess the variability among the genotypes. The genotypic coefficient of variance helps to measure the range of diversity in a character and provides the means to compare genetic variability in quantitative characters. The genotypic coefficient of variance along with phenotypic coefficient of variation was used to ascertain the value of diversity among the genotypes. The variability study revealed that higher phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) and genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) were recorded for fresh seed yield per plant, dry seed yield per plant and fresh pod yield per plant. The higher estimates of heritability and genetic advance as per cent of mean were obtained for number of leaves, fresh pod yield and fresh seed yield. Thus, selection for these traits is likely to accumulate more additive genes leading to further improvement in their performance. In context to the associations between characters; positive phenotypic and genotypic correlations of dry seed yield were found with plant height, days to 50% flowering, number of flowers per plant, number of pods per plant, pod length, fresh pod yield per plant and fresh seed yield per plant. These correlated yield components suggested that it may be good selection criteria to improve seed yield of this crop. The traits viz., total sugar, mean leaf area, leaf area index and relative water content exhibited negatively and non-significantly correlation with dry seed yield per plant both at phenotypic and genotypic levels. Fresh seed yield per plant had highest positive effect on seed yield followed by number of pods per plant and fresh seed weight per pod. These yield components suggested that it may be good selection criteria to improve seed yield of glory lily crop. Gloriosa superba usually multiply by corm and seeds but due to low germination capability it restricts for the regeneration. Therefore, in order to safeguard and preserve this important plant biotechnological approach would be very useful. Different workers suggested different protocols for in vitro regeneration of plant. Now a day’s molecular diversity also play a vital role in crop improvement programme. RAPD and SSR markers were frequently used to identify molecular diversity in this crop.