Journal of Applied Horticulture. 2004: 6(2): 43-44

Selection response in vegetable amaranth (A. tricolor) for different foliage cuttings

Atul Bhargava; Sudhir Shukla; Avijeet Chatterjee; Singh, S P

Division of Genetics and Plant Breeding, National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow - 226 001, India.

An experiment was conducted during 2003 kharif season in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India, on 29 vegetable amaranth (Amaranthus tricolor) cultivars to identify the suitable direct and indirect component traits that contribute towards foliage yield. The first cutting of foliage started after the third week of sowing and subsequent cuttings were conducted at 15-day intervals. Data were recorded for plant height, stem diameter, branches per plant, leaves per plant, leaf size, protein content and foliage yield. Heritability values were high for all the characters in all the cuttings and pooled values. Foliage yield showed maximum heritability in all 4 cuttings followed by plant height and leaf size. Genetic gain was highest for foliage yield followed by leaf size and stem diameter. In general, the genetic advance values were high in all the cuttings for foliage yield, plant height, leaf size and stem diameter. Only plant height was positively correlated with foliage yield in all the cuttings. In the first and second cuttings, genotypic correlation was positive for most of the characters, except for protein content in the first cutting and branches per plant in the second cutting. There was a moderate positive correlated response for plant height, leaf size, leaves per plant and stem diameter in the first 2 cuttings.