Character Association and Path Co-efficient Analysis in Garlic (Allium sativum L.)

Correlation co-efficient analysis in garlic (Allium sativum L.) revealed that total yield (rp=0.824), leaf length (rp=0.634), equatorial diameter of bulb (rp=0.559), leaf width (rp=0.544), plant height (rp=0.498) pseudo stem diameter (rp=0.476), polar diameter of bulb (rp=0.460), average weight of bulb (rp=0.459) and days to maturity (rp=0.435) were positively and significantly associated with bulb yield plant?1. Path analysis revealed that number of cloves bulb?1 (0.820) fallowed by pseudo stem diameter (0.315), number of leaves plant?1 (0.163), leaf width (0.132), pseudo stem length (0.091), equatorial diameter (0.050) and days to maturity (0.034) had the high positive direct effect on bulb yield per plant. It was also observed that the high negative direct effect was exerted by leaf length (?0.124) fallowed by plant height (?0.118), average weight of 10 cloves (?0.049) and polar diameter (?0.033). Hence, these characters should be given more weight age in selection programme of high yielding variety in garlic.