Genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance of quantitative traits in sugarcane

It is essential to have basic information on the genetic nature of variation of various metric traits in plantation crops for the proper planning of breeding strategies. An experiment was conducted with 15 early maturing sugarcane clones to assess the Genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance.at RPCAU Pusa in spring 2017. The analysis of variance revealed highly significant differences among the clones for twenty two traits and significant for one traits i.e. plant height at harvest. Moderate GCV and PCV were observed for the characters namely single cane weight at harvest, sugar yield and cane yield at harvest. High heritability with high genetic advance as per cent of mean was found in sugar yield at harvest while high heritability with moderate genetic advance as percent of mean was observed in germination percent, plant height at 240 days, cane diameter at harvest, single cane weight, millable cane at harvest, and cane yield at harvest, indicating the role of dominant genetic effects in determination of these characters and its improvements in early maturing sugarcane clones.