GENETIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABILITY, HERITABILITY AND GENETIC ADVANCE IN POD YIELD, YIELD COMPONENTS, OIL AND PROTEIN CONTENT OF PEANUT VARIETIES

In this study, genetic and environmental variability, broad-sense heritability, genetic advance and correlation coefficients of pod yield, yield components, oil and protein content of ten registered peanut varieties were examined. Year (Y), location (L), year x location interaction (Y x L), genotype (G), genotype x year interaction (G x Y), genotype x location interaction (G x L) and genotype x year x location interaction (G x Y x L) were significant, but G x Y for shelling percentage was not significant. Genotypic and phenotypic variances were highest for pod yield followed by hundred pod weight, whereas all investigated traits of peanut varieties were significantly different. Broad sense heritability estimates ranged from moderate level to high. Heritability values were estimated to be maximum for shelling percentage (95.4%), hundred kernel weight (91.6%), hundred pod weight (88.3%), while moderate for pod number (63.8%), pod weight (60.4%), first quality pod ratio (63.3%), pod yield (63.2%), oil content (52.0%) and protein content (52.5%). High heritability for shelling percentage, hundred kernel weight and hundred pod weight indicated that these characteristics were affected less than the others by the environmental conditions. The magnitudes of genetic advance were observed to be very high (>50%) for hundred pod weight, 100 kernel weight, pod weight and pod yield; moderate (20-50%) for pod number, first quality pod ratio, shelling percentage and low (