International Journal of Plant & Soil Science

A field experiment was conducted at the Instructional-cum-Research Farm of the Horticulture Section, Rajarshee Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj Government College of Agriculture, Kolhapur, to assess associations among yield and yield-attributing traits in 25 coriander genotypes. The experiment was laid out in a Randomised Block Design with two replications. Genotypic and phenotypic correlation coefficients and path coefficients were estimated for fresh weight per plant and related traits. Fresh weight per plant showed positive associations with plant height, length of main stem, leaf length, number of leaves per plant, number of branches per plant, stem girth and foliage yield at both genotypic and phenotypic levels, whereas days to harvest showed a negative association. Plant height and length of main stem displayed particularly strong positive associations with fresh weight per plant. Path coefficient analysis showed that stem girth had the highest positive direct effect on fresh weight per plant (0.66784), followed by foliage yield (0.62847) and number of leaves per plant (0.47148). Plant height (−0.26610), length of main stem (−0.53267) and days to harvest (−0.21320) showed negative direct effects. The residual effect was 0.1244, indicating that the traits included in the analysis accounted for most of the observed variation. These findings suggest that stem girth, foliage yield and number of leaves per plant may be useful selection criteria for improving fresh weight per plant under the conditions of the present experiment.