Document Type : Research paper
Authors
Department of Agronomy and Plant Breeding Sciences, Aburaihan Campus, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
We selected ten Ajowan parents (Carum copticum L.) from a genetically diverse population to evaluate gene effects, heritability, and correlations among their morphological traits. We poly-crossed the parents to produce half-sib genotypes. The evaluations comprised the number of days to flowering, plant height, number of fertile branches, number of umbrellas per plant, number of seeds per umbel, seed yield per plant, harvest index, essential oil percentage, and essential oil yield. Parents and polycross progeny seeds grew in a randomized complete block design with three replications at the University of Tehran, 2015-2017. The results showed broad-sense heritability ranged from 0.64 to 0.96 in parents and their progenies. Narrow-sense heritability appeared through the regression of progenies on the parents (h2po) and via progeny analysis (h2n), suggesting that additive genes control these traits. The correlation of seed yield with plant height, number of fertile branches, number of umbrellas per plant, and number of seeds per umbel were positive and significant. The results indicated a significant negative correlation between thymol and γ- terpinene in parents and half-sib families. We reported wide variations and high heritability for most of the evaluated traits in the ajowan populations that can improve seed and essential oil yields.
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