Selection possibilities for seed content - a determinant of fresh fruit quality in guava (Psidium guajava L.).

A total of 68 guava accessions were studied to determine the genetic variability and heritability for fruit weight and associated seed characteristics. Data were recorded for fruit weight, number of seeds per fruit, seed weight per fruit, 100-seed weight, number of seeds per 100 g fruit and seed content. High genotypic (GCV) and phenotypic (PCV) coefficients of variation were observed for all the traits. However, GCV was maximum for pulp:seed weight ratio followed by number of seeds per fruit, 100-seed weight and number of seeds per 100 g fruit. The estimates of PCV ranged from 33.85 (average fruit weight) to 609.75% (pulp:seed weight ratio). The number of seeds per 100 g fruit, number of seeds per fruit and 100-seed weight also exhibited high levels of PCV. The estimates of heritability in the broad sense ranged from 0.558 (seed content) to 0.843 (pulp:seed weight ratio) suggesting that all the characters had high magnitude of heritability. The estimate of genetic advance as percent of mean ranged from 43.76