Abstract:
The plants were grown on a three replicated RBD with thirty culinary
varieties of banana at the Banana Research Station (KAU) Kannara. Measurements
ort thirteen morphological characters were taken for the study. These biometric
characters had shown high significant difference among the varieties. All the significant phenotypic and genotypic correlations of the characters with yield were
positive. From the path coefficient analysis, it was seen that the yield is influenced
by the number of fingers and as the number of hands increases, the number of
fingers per hand decreases. No significant gain in genetic advance was observed
when the genetic advance through discriminant function was compared with that
through straight selection. The analysis with restricted selection (to girth)
indicated that the character, number of fingers, had the maximum genetic advance.
The varieties Poykunnam and Walha were noted for their highest values of selection
indices.
