Path analysis in castor (Ricinus communis L.)

摘要

In Andra Pradesh. castor is grown over an area of 0.25 m ha in rainfed districts of Nalgonda, Mahabubnagar, Medak, Ranga Reddy, Warangal and parts of Kurnool and Prakasam. The crop suffers from periodic dry spells and cyclonic rains resulting in loss of certain spike orders. Determination of yield contributing characters that influence seed yield would help breeders to select suitable genotypes for rainfed situations. The present study was, therefore, undertaken to identify the characters that directly and indirectly contribute to total productivity. Twenty castor genotypes of different duration groups received from different AICORPO research centres were evaluated for yield superiority of alfisols during Kharif, 1997 under rainfed condition at Regional Agricultural Research Station, Palem. The genotypes were sown in a Randomized block design and repliced four times. Each genotype was planted in ten rows. each of 5.4 m length. The rows and plants were spaced 0.90 m X 0.45 m apart. Fertilizers Viz. nitrogen @ 40 kg ha~(-1) in two equal splits as basal and at 30 DAS, phosphorous @ 40 kg ha~(-1) and K_2O @ 30 kg ha~(-1) were incorporated. Data were recorded from five plants in each replication on plant height, days to flowering, spikes per plant, effective length of main spike, nodes to main spike, capsules per plant, hundred seed weight, oil per cent, first picking yield, second picking yield and third picking yield. The correlations and path coefficients were calculated as described by Dewey andLu (1959).