Abstract

Morphological data on fourteen biometrical traits in thirty palms belonging to six popular coconut cultivars of south Travancore, via., WCT, Komadan, Laccadive Ordinary, Natural Cross Dwarf, Chowghat Green Dwarf and Chowghat Orange Dwarf were subjected to genetic analysis. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance was observed for weight of unhusked nut, weight of husked nut and number of nuts per palm per year indicating the use of these characters in selection for improvement. All characters showed positive significant correlation with direct effect on yield. Cluster analysis showed the nut characters to be superior in assessing genetic divergence in coconut. The group constellations developed based on D 2 showed that the local cultivar WCT and NCD were clustered together and the well preferred cultivar Komadan got clustered along with Laccadive Ordinary, the variety of Lakshadweep released in Kerala as "Chandrakalpa" for its superiority in performance. Maximum divergence was reported between Komadan and NCD. Komadan was found to be a superior palm on par with laccadive ordinary. Hybridization between Komadan and WCT and between Komadan and Dwarf palms is suggested for yielding superior hybrids.

Keywords: Genetic analysis, Coconut, Genetic improvement