Vol. 11, Issue 4 (2022)

Author(s):
N Vishnurekha, Mayur K Sonagara, DJ Parmar and PR Vaishnav

Abstract:
In the present study, five biometrical characters viz., fruit yield per plant, days to initial flowering, plant height, average fruit weight and the number of fruits per plant were used to construct selection indices in all possible combination of characters. Thirty- one selection indices were constructed by using different weights like equal weight (W₁), heritability (W₂), standard deviation (W₃), simple correlation with fruit yield (W₄). The selection index (I₁₃₅) having fruit yield per plant, plant height and the number of fruits per plant had the highest per cent relative efficiency (PRE) among the combinations of selection indices in equal, heritability weight methods. Whereas, selection index (I235) combination of days to initial flowering, plant height, and the number of fruits per plant had highest PRE in standard deviation method and selection index (I1235) combination of fruit yield per plant, days to initial flowering, plant height, and the number of fruits per plant had highest PRE in simple correlation. The rank correlation showed that ranks assigned to genotypes by all weight methods were more or less similar. It is concluded that as per the simplicity of arithmetic, equal weight method is suitable for the development of the selection index compared to other weight methods.