African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 5 (14), pp. 1337-1340, 16 July 2006   

ISSN 1684–5315 © 2006 Academic Journals        

Full Length Research Paper

Character association and path analysis in grain sorghum

I.E.Ezeaku¹ and S.G. Mohammed²

¹International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Western and Central Africa Region, P.M.B. 3491 Kano, Nigeria.

²Department of Plant Science, Institute for Agricultural Research, Ahmadu Bello University, P.M.B. 1044, Zaria, Nigeria.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: i.ezeaku@cgiar.org.

Accepted 17 May, 2005

Association and path analysis between hill count, bloom, plant height, panicle length, panicle count, 1000 seed mass, head weight and grain yield of thirty sorghum varieties were studied over two locations and years. There is significant high positive correlation between grain yield and head weight (r=0.976), grain yield and 1000 grain mass (r=0.522) and 1000 grain mass and head weight (r=0.528). Similarly, significant but negative correlation exists between panicle count and panicle length. Partitioning of yield and yield components into direct and indirect effects revealed that head weight had the highest direct effect on grain yield (0.961) while 1000 grain mass contributed indirectly to grain yield via head weight (0.507). Panicle count also contributed to grain yield indirectly through head weight (0.420) indicating the importance of head weight as one of the most important yield components followed by 1000 grain mass and then panicle count. There is high positive phenotypic and genotypic correlation coefficient between hill and panicle count, panicle count and head weight, panicle count and grain yield and head weight and grain yield. Plant height has high positive phenotypic and genotypic correlation coefficients with head weight (r_p= 0.550, r_g=0.881) and grain yield (r_p=0.555, r_g=0.904).

Key words: Sorghum, grain yield, correlation, path analysis.