Studies on Direct and Indirect Effects of Different Plant Characters on Yield of Taro (<i>Colocasia esculenta</i> L. Schott) Var. Antiquorum

Abstract

Thirty accessions of taro (Colocasia esculenta L) varieties were evaluated to estimate the direct and indirect effects of different plant characters, namely, plant height, petiole length, petiole breadth, leaf number, leaf length, leaf breadth, LAI, inflorescence length, peduncle length, corm length, corm breadth, cormel number, cormel length, cormel breadth, corm weight, cormel weight on yield per plant. Plant height, petiole length, corm breadth, cormel number, cormel length exhibited direct effect on yield per plant at the genotypic level. Cormel weight and cormel breadth had the highest direct effect on yield per plant at the phenotypic level. The residual effect was 0.3043 at the genotypic level and that at phenotypic level was 0.4874.

Keywords: Colocasia esculenta; direct effect; indirect effect; yield of taro

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/agric.v9i1-2.9483

The Agriculturists 2011; 9(1&2): 89-98