MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERIZATION AND GENETIC DIVERSITY OF ONION (Ailium cepa L)

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to study genetic divergence and morphological characterization and yield potentiality of ten difThrcnt onion genotypes. The study was carried out at the experimental farm, Dept. of Genetics and Plant Breeding, SAU. during November. 2007 to April. 2008. The results indicated that different genotypes showed significant variation regarding all the characters studied. Maximum differences of genotypic and phenotypic variances and coefficient of variation as well as high heritability coupled with high genetic advance were observed for most of the traits. The maximum bulb yield (524.64 g) per plant was noticed in the genotype SAU-B-G-7. The same genotype also showed highest performance in respect of no. of bulb per plant. The genotype SAU-B-G- I matured within minimum days (108.00) which showed the lowest (32.39 g) bulb yield among the materials under study. Cluster II comprised maximum number of genotypes (6) followed by cluster III. I, and IV. fl,e highest inter genotypic distance was observed between genotypes SAU-B-G- I and SAU-B-G-7 (3.483). The inter cluster distance was maximum between the cluster I and IV (9.083). Among the characters diameter of floral stock (1.1473) and days requircd for visible appearance of shoot (0.1220) were major characters that contributed mostly toward genetic divergence.