Journal of Basic and Applied Research International

Genetic characterization of morphological and yield traits in ten genotypes of Celosia argentea L. was evaluated at the Research Farm of the Department of Botany, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. The experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design with four replicates. The results of analysis of variance carried out on early morphological characters of C. argentea L. at 3, 4, and 5weeks after sowing showed significant (p<0.05/p<0.01) effects except for number of leaves per plant and leaf width at 3 and 5 weeks after sowing, respectively. The replicates in blocks produced varying observable effects on the genotypes while genotype x replicate showed significant variation on morpho-agronomic and yield traits except number of days to flowering at 50 days and fruit length at maturity. Also, from the result of the mean separation, it is shown that NG/MAY/09/015 performed the best for plant height at flowering, leaf length at flowering, leaf width at flowering, and root biomass. NG/SA/07/213 produced the highest mean values of number of flowers per plant, leaf biomass and pod weight at maturity. The highest values of number of primary branches and fruit length at maturity (FLM) were observed for NG/TO/MAY/09/015, while NG/AO/MAY/09/015 had the highest for pod weight at maturity. The result of principal component axis also showed that Prin 1 accounted for highest Eigen Vector of 38.62% from the total variation. NG/MAY/09/015 (R₂) genotype produced the highest Eigen Vector of 6.705 from Prin 1. The correlation result showed that plant height had a significant positive association with seed weight at maturity, pod weight at maturity, number of primary branches and fruit length at maturity, while similar association existed between leaf biomass, number of primary branches and pod weight at maturity, as well as between plant height at flowering and pod weight at maturity. Again, the number of primary branches is also positive and significantly correlated with plant height, root biomass and leaf length. Furthermore, the results of dendrogram and minimum spanning tree revealed variations in genetic relatedness and distance, respectively, which exist among the population of the C. argentea L.