VARIABILITY AND HERITABILITY ANALYSIS IN SHORT DURATION AND HIGH YIELDING Brassica rapa L.

The experiment was carried out with 32 genotypes of Brassica rapa including two commercially cultivated varieties as checks to study their inter-genotypic variability, heritability, GCV, PCV, genetic advance, and CV percent considering 10 morphological characters at the experimental farm of SAU, Dhaka during November 2009 to February 2010. Significant variation was observed among the genotypes for all the characters studied except thousand seed weight. High GCV and PCV values were observed for number of secondary branches/plant. High heritability values along with low genetic advance in percentage of mean were obtained for 1000-seed weight, number of secondary branches/plant, seeds/siliquae, and siliquae length. Highly significant positive association of seed yield per plant was observed with number of primary branches/plant, number of secondary branches/plant and number of siliquae/plant. Considering variability among the genotypes, heritability, genetic advance , percent co-efficient of variance, and field performances, the genotypes G-15, G-19, G-1, G-3, G-4, G-10, G-18, G21, and G-24 were found suitable for future breeding programme. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bjar.v38i4.19020 Bangladesh J. Agril. Res. 38(4): 647-657, December 2013