Estimation of direct selection parameter in okra [Abelmoschus esculentus(L.) Moench]

The experiment was conducted at Main Experimental Station, Department of Vegetable Science, Narendra Deva University of Agriculture and Technology, Kumarganj, Faizabad during Kharif, 2016 in Randomized Block Design with three replications using thirty genotypes of okra collected from different sources to study the correlation and path coefficients analysis at phenotypic and genotypic levels for different quantitative characters. Characters like marketable fruit yield per plant (0.8522), unmarketable fruit yield per plant (0.7458), number of fruits per plant (0.7449), plant height (0.7204), days to 50% flowering (0.5720), days to first fruit harvest (0.5482), crop duration (0.5330) and fruit length (0.4370) have positive significant and desirable association with fruit yield. Thus there is an ample scope for improving characters through direct selection. Marketable fruit yield per plant (0.6192), unmarketable fruit yield per plant (0.4635), number of fruits per plant (0.0670) and days to first fruit harvest (0.0667) were identified as most important traits which had positive direct effect on total fruit yield per plant while, the negative direct effect on yield by rest of the dependent traits were very low.