Studies on genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance in cucumber (Cucumis sativus)

The experiment was conducted in Randomized Block Design with three replications to assess the performance of 27 genotypes of cucumber to determine nature of variability, character association, path analysis and genetic divergence. Observations were recorded on 12 quantitative characters viz., days to first male flower anthesis, days to first female flower anthesis, node number to first staminate flower appearance, node number to first pistillate flower appearance, number of primary branches per plant, vine length (m), days to first fruit harvest, fruit length (cm), fruit diameter (cm), number of fruit per plant, average fruit weight (g), fruit yield per plant (kg). The analysis of variancerevealed significant differences among the genotypes for all the characters except days to maturity. Based on mean performance most promising genotypes viz., NDCC-7, NDCC-15, JPCC-1, JPCC-4 were found as most promising genotypes for high yield per plant. The estimates of phenotypic coefficients of variation (PCV) were higher than genotypic coefficients of variation (GCV) for all the characters. The highest phenotypic as well as genotypic coefficients of variation were observed in number of primary branches followed by fruit length. High heritability coupled with low genetic advanced in per cent of mean were observed for fruit length followed by days to first male flower anthesis, number of primary branches, average fruit weight, node to first male flower anthesis had exhibited highly significant and positive phenotypic correlation with number of fruit per plant followed by vine length, fruit diameter, number of primary branches per plant, days to first male flower anthesis, days to female flower anthesis and fruit length.