Assessment of genetic variability among dahlia (Dahlia variabilis L.) genotypes for productivity and quality traits

An experiment was conducted with 32 genotypes of dahlia to study the genotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variation, heritability and expected genetic advance. The data indicated that estimates of genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) are higher than those of phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) for all the traits studied indicating little influence of environment and the presence of inherent association between various characters. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance and high GCV were observed for most of the traits indicating the presence of additive gene action. High estimates of GCV (>20%), PCV (>20%), heritability (>60%) and genetic advance over mean(>20%) were obtained for plant height at 90 days after planting, leaf area index, duration of flowering, number of flowers/plant, flower yield per ha, tuber weight, number of tubers per plant, individual flower weight, flower diameter, petal length and stalk length showing that selection of these characters may be relied upon for pure line selection for improvement.