Genetic association in Chenopodium

Abstract

Chenopodium spp. are being cu'ttivated since centuries for leafy vegetable (C. album) as well as an important subsidiary grain crop (C. quinoa and C. album) for human and animal foodstuff due to high protein (10-14%) and a balanced amino acid spectrum with high lysine (5.1-6.4%) and methionine (0.4-1.0%) contents [1]. The present study on correlation and path analysis was conducted to elucidate the interrelationship among different agronomic traits in Chenopodium spp. The material comprised 44 germplasm lines of Chenopodium spp. which were grown in a randomized block design with 3 replications in the crop year 2000-2001. Each entry was sown in two rows of 3m long. The row-to-row and plant-to-plant distances were maintained 45cm and 15cm respectively. The observations were recorded on 5 plants from each entry and replication for seed yield/plant (g) and its 10 agronomic traits. The genotypic and phenotypic correlations were computed as suggested by Mullar et al. [2] and path coefficient as described by Dewey and Lu [3].