Genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance studies for physico-chemical characters of apricot germplasm under Ladakh region

Abstract

On the basis of survey, a total of eighty three accessions were collected from apricot growing areas of Ladakh region scattered in three valleys, namely, Indus, Suru, Nubra and evaluated accordingly. The analysis of variance revealed significant differences in the accessions for all the quantitative and qualitative characters and indicated that noticeable variability is present in the apricot germplasm. All the 26 characters showed positive phenotypic variance (PV) as well as genotypic variance (GV). It was found that PV was higher than GV in all the characters under study except in five characters, viz., kernel cheek diameter, kernel weight, kernel volume, acidity and reducing sugars were PV and GV was found to be equal. It was also noticed that except three characters, i.e., pH of juice, acidity and reducing sugar, all the characters showed higher magnitude of phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) than genotypic coefficient of variance (GCV). The Maximum heritability was recorded in acidity (79.75) followed by kernel cheek diameter (99.40) with least heritability percentage was recorded in leaf petiole length (69.39). The trait kernel cheek diameter (89.601) showed highest genetic advance followed by pulp weight (71.00), fruit volume (67.32) and fruit weight (66.98) with a lowest of 2.93 for kernel volume, respectively.