CORRELATION AND PATH ANALYSIS STUDIES ON BIDI TOBACCO (NICOTIANA TABACUM L.)

Tobacco is one of the important commercial crops in the world. Among various types the Bidi tobacco is more widely grown in Pakistan and in India. The study work has been carried out in Agriculture research Station Nipani at Belgaum district in Karnataka. Total experimental materials consists of 62 genotypes, All these genotypes were grown in lattice design with three replication. Various characters observed for their genetic analysis, viz., Days to flower, Plant height (cm), Internodal length (cm), Numbers of leaves,Leaf length (cm), Leaf breadth (cm) Total dry weight (g/plant), stalk weight (g/plant) and Leaf yield (g/plant) these quantitative traits were recorded from the field at vegetative stage. The quality traits such as nicotine content, spangles score (sort of puckering on the leaves indicates more quality), reducing sugar and chloride content in percentage is recorded using auto analyzer readings. Correlation studies revealed that the leaf yield was positively and significantly correlated with plant height, number of leaves, leaf length, leaf breadth, leaf area, internodal length, total fresh weight, total dry weight, both at genotypic and phenotypic levels. The leaf yield was negatively associated with spangle, frog eye leaf spot, root knot nematode, nicotine and reducing sugar. The remaining characters such as days to flower and chloride had weak association. Path analysis revealed that direct contribution of number of leaves, leaf breadth, total fresh weight, frog eye leaf spot, root knot nematode, nicotine, reducing sugar and chloride were of higher magnitude on leaf yield. However, indirect positive contribution of plant height, leaf length and leaf area were appreciable to enhance the yield