Sethi K.¹ , Tripathy S.K.² , Lenka P.C.¹

1. Department of Fruit Science and Horticulture Technology, College of Agriculture, OUAT, Bhubaneswar, India
2. Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, College of Agriculture, OUAT, Bhubaneswar, India
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Horticulture, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 21   doi: 10.5376/ijh.2016.06.0021
Received: 07 Aug., 2016    Accepted: 10 Sep., 2016    Published: 10 Oct., 2016

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Sethi K., Tripathy S.K., and Lenka P.C., 2016, Harnessing Genetic Variation Among Experimental Cashew Hybrids,International Journal of Horticulture, 6(21):1-8 (doi: 10.5376/ijh.2016.06.0021)

A set of 71 cashew test genotypes comprising 60 experimental hybrids, eight parents (BP 1, BP 2, Kalyanpur bold nut, VTH 711/4, Kankadi, M 44/3, Vittol 44/3 and BPP 30/1) and three standard checks (BH 6, BPP 8 and BH 85) was assessed for status of genetic variation of morpho-economic traits. Number of perfect flowers revealed maximum variability (CV=50.83%) followed by sex ratio, apple weight and nuts/panicle. BH 6 came to flower early with synchronous flowering, while F 28 and F 38 bore more than 200 perfect flowers/m_².  B 27 and D 19 had more than 20 flowering laterals/m_² with longer and broader panicles. All the top yielders (D 19, H 6, B 27, A 71 and G 8) were the hybrids among which D 19 recorded highest productivity (4.34g/plant and 2.71ton/ha) with large nut size and G 8 recorded the highest number of nuts/panicle (8.02). C 30 recorded highest TSS (Brix value 17.45) with appealing yellow apple. Few genotypes showed increased (>70cm) trunk girth(C-41, E-3, E-16 and VTH-711/4) and compact canopy (BH 85 and M 44/3) and more canopy spread(>5m) in North-South direction (A 71). Above elite test genotypes with specific morpho-economic features may be utilized as donors in future breeding programme. Besides, promising hybrids (D19, H 6 and B27) with high nut yield may be considered for large scale multiplication and follow-up commercial cultivation.

Genetic variation; Morpho-economic traits; Cashew hybrids