Vol. 12, Issue 3 (2023)

Author(s):
Pratibha, Ankit Yadav, GB Patil, Sushil Kumar and Mayur Kumar Sonagara

Abstract:
Ashwagandha is a well-known medicinal herb with various nutritional and pharmacological importance’s in Indian medical system. This experiment was conducted to acquire information on mean performances, genotypic and phenotypic variability, heritability and genetic advance for various quantitative and biochemical traits in ashwagandha. It consisted of 96 genotypes that were raised in a randomized complete block design (RBD) in three replications over two different years viz; rabi 2020 and rabi 2021 with two different dates of sowing. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) of all eleven traits viz., plant height (cm), primary branches per plant, days to 50% flowering, main root length per plant (cm), root girth per plant (cm), fresh root yield per plant (g), dry root yield per plant (g), total soluble sugar (%), starch content (%), total crude fiber (%) and withanolides (%) for each environment were calculated. For all of the traits, phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) was higher than genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV), indicating that the environment has a masking impact on the expression of genetic variability. The differences between PCV and GCV were high for some traits and low for other traits which suggested that influence of environment was large for certain characters and small for other. Genotype AGP-22 exhibited the highest fresh root yield per plant in E2, E3 and E4 and second highest in E1. Also, in respect to dry root yield per plant and root girth per plant, AGP-22 manifested highest value in all the environments except for root girth per plant in E2 (AGP-72). High heritability coupled with high genetic advance as per cent mean were noticed for all the characters except for plant height, primary branches per plant, days to 50% flowering and main root length per plant.