SEQUENTIAL PATH ANALYSIS AND RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN FRUIT YIELD IN WATERMELON

The knowledge of relationship between fruit yield and its components certainly helps to improve the efficiency of a breeding program with appropriate selection criteria. In current study, interrelationships between fruit yield and its components in watermelon were investigated using sequential path coefficient analysis. The experiment containing 38 diverse genotypes of watermelon were evaluated in a randomized complete block design with 3 replications during the year 2016 and 2017. The correlation between flesh weight and fruit yield (0.854 and 0.751) was the highest, followed by fruit length-fruit yield correlation (0.463 and 0.459) in both years. Sequential stepwise multiple regression analysis was performed to organize the predictor variables into first, second and third-order paths based on their respective contributions to the total variation of yield and minimum collinearity. Based on the variance inflation factor and magnitude of direct effects, flesh weight was considered as first-order variables in both years and accounted for 72 and 49 percent of the total variation of fruit yield, respectively. The results of both year 2016 and 2017 also indicated that the plant traits i.e. number of nodes per stem, and fruit length could be considered as selection criterion to increase fruit yield in watermelon