Studies on genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance in long day onion (Allium cepa L.) genotypes

Onion (Allium cepa L.) is a globally famous vegetable and is used in a variety of ways, including eaten fresh, added as a spice or prepared as a main ingredient in cooking. Pungent and sweet taste, texture, and several other qualities are required for onions to be suitable as processing ingredients. In this study the evaluation of onion genotypes for growth, yield and quality in hill condition in order to achieve more production and productivity objective. However, there is great potential for increasing area, production and productivity of this crop in the hill region, and hence, there is an urgent need to evaluate different long day onion genotypes. Therefore, significant variation among the 50 genotypes of onion was observed for all the traits viz., plant height, leaf length, number of leaves/plant, polar and equatorial diameter of bulbs, average bulb weight, total soluble solids, percentage of grade (A, B and c) of bulb, total yield (q/ha) and % weight loss after 2 month of storage. It was also observed that moderate for bulb weight was positively associated with polar diameter and length of bulb. For improving bulb yield component traits in onion, the generation of genetically broad base population using diverse genotypes in breeding programme is advocated. the highest bulb yield (1061.30 q/ha) was recorded in genotypes oN-15-33, followed by 911.70 q/ha and 889.10 q/ha in oN-14-23 and oLr-1343, respectively. the weight loss % after 2 months of storage recorded minimum in genotypes oN-1388 (3.33%). Estimates of heritability in number of leaves/plant (18.60%) and total bulb yield q/ha (99.00%). the average bulb weight and yield/m2 is positively correlated with bulb yield (q/ha).