TY - BOOK AU - Aswathi G Prasad AU - Namboodiri Raji Vasudevan (Guide) TI - Characterization of okra [Abelmoschus esculentus L. Moench] genotypes in North Kerala U1 - 630.28 PY - 2017/// CY - Padannakkad PB - Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, College of Agriculture KW - Agriculture KW - Plant Breeding and Genetics N1 - MSc N2 - The study entitled “Characterization of okra [Abelmoschus esculentus L. Moench] genotypes in North Kerala” was carried out in the Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, College of Agriculture, Padannakkad during 2015-2017. The main objective of the study was exploration and collection of okra genotypes in North Kerala and evaluation of collected accessions for morphological characterization, genetic variability and diversity in qualitative and quantitative traits. On the basis of eco-geographic survey conducted in North Kerala, 44 accessions of Abelmoschus esculentus were collected from Kannur, Malappuram and Kasaragod district and the passport data of these accessions were prepared. During the exploration in areas of okra collection, a wide variability was noticed with respect to its morphological traits. Thirty eight accessions out of fourty five were evaluated for various qualitative and quantitative traits in augmented design using two checks viz Salkeerthi a variety released from Kerala Agricultural University and Arka Anamika from Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (ICAR-IIHR), Bangalore. They were subjected to morphological characterization for fourteen qualitative traits based on IPGRI descriptors and genetic variability analysis for nineteen quantitative traits. The morphological characterization showed distinct morphotypes in the okra accessions as depicted by variation in branching habit, stem colour, leaf shape, leaf colour, flower colour, fruit shape, fruit pubescence and fruit position. The analysis of variance indicated significant differences among the accessions for all the quantitative characters except number of locules per fruit and fruit length. However among the checks there was no significant difference for characters such as days to 50 per cent flowering, internode length, number of units in epicalyx, size of sepal, size of petal and fruit diameter. When checks were compared with accessions, characters like number of fruiting nodes, size of sepals and size of petals did not show any significant difference. Two accessions viz, AE-16 followed by AE-20 recorded higher green fruit yield than two checks with AE-16 recording maximum. The accession AE-20 was also superior for characters such as number of marketable fruits per plant, primary branches per plant and required lesser number of days to attain marketable maturity. The accession AE-5 had shown superiority for important fruit characters such as fruit weight and fruit diameter. All these accessions showed no incidence of fruit and shoot borer except AE-5. Among the components of variability, high heritability coupled with high genetic advance as per cent of mean was observed for plant height, primary branches per plant, internode length, fruit weight, fruit diameter, days to marketable maturity and green fruit yield indicating effectiveness of selection based on phenotypic performance of these traits. Yield being a complex character, the association analysis of component characters of yield revealed high positive genotypic correlation for characters such as primary branches, fruit weight and number of marketable fruits. Significant negative genotypic correlation was exhibited by first flowering node with green fruit yield. Path coefficient analysis revealed that internode length, number of fruiting nodes, fruit diameter and number of marketable fruits per plant are the main determinants of green fruit yield in okra as indicated by their high positive direct effects and the characters first flowering node and days to 50 per cent flowering are major determinants of earliness as indicated by their high negative direct effect on green fruit yield. So improvement in yield will be efficient if selection is done based on all these characters. Genetic diversity analysis based on Standardized Euclidean Square Distance for nineteen quantitative characters grouped thirty eight accessions into seven clusters. The clustering showed that there is no parallelism between the geographical distribution and clustering pattern. On the basis of qualitative characters cluster analysis with UPGMA (Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic mean) method grouped the 38 okra accessions into three main clusters as distinguished by branching pattern, leaf and stem colour. There was a total of twenty cross combinations of genotypes belonging to clusters with high inter cluster distance and superior mean performance based on the overall ranking in the clusters for the four attributes viz. fruit weight, marketable fruits per plant, days to marketable maturity and green fruit yield. AE- 5, AE-10, AE-16, AE-18, AE-20 and AE-30 were identified as promising. The present investigation projected the importance of AE-16 and AE-20 as one of the parents for higher heterosis in F1 and potential transgrents in the subsequent generation. Both these accessions have considerably high green fruit yield per plant greater than the checks Salkeerthi and Arka Anamika. Similarly the accessions like AE-10, AE-18, AE-30 belonging to cluster I, V and IV were identified as superior in yield and AE-5 belonging to cluster VI as promising with highest fruit weight. If these genotypes are involved in crosses with Salkeerthi, the popular variety of KAU with excellent fruit characters will give potentially high yielding segregates with good market value. UR - http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810143544 ER -