Abstract

Investigations with 65 clones of sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas Lam.) indicated that (it in general the genotypic coefficient of variation was lower than the phenotypic one indicating the larger measure of influence of environment: (i) the weight of tubers per vine, number of leaves per vine and the weight of foliage exhibited a high degree of both phenotypic and genotypic coefficients of variations while girth of stem had the least coefficient of variation: (i) high heritability estimates were obtained for length of petiole and number of leaves per vine: (iv) high heritability and low genetic advance were observed for all the characters except girth of tuber and number of tubers par vine in which the genetic advance was very high: (v) except length of vine and girth of stem. all the characters had pasitive association with tuber yield; (vi) the path analysis indi- cated that the waight of foliage, girth of tuber and number of tubers por vine contri. buted maximum direct effects on tuber yield indicating the importance of these three characters as selection indices for sweet potato and (vii) the number of leaves, length of petiole and length of tuber had negative direct effects on tuber yield.

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