Printed in Nigeria ESTIMATION OF HERITABLE COMPONENTS OF VARIATION AND CHARACTER SELECTION IN EGGPLANT (Solanum melongena L.) FOR MUTATION BREEDING PROGRAMME

Evaluation of eggplant (Solanum melongena) genotypes, including one control check and nine mutants for ten agronomical characters to assess the magnitude of variability and to pick up the heritable component of variation present in the agronomic traits, revealed significant differences among the genotypes for all the studied characters indicating the presence of substantial genetic variability. The magnitude of phenotypic coefficient variation (PCV) was observed higher than the genotypic counterpart (GCV), indicating the greater influence of prevailing environment. High GCV and PCV have been obtained for number of fruits per plant and average fruit weight. High heritability estimates were obtained for number of fruits and leaves per plant, days to first harvest, average fruit weight; moderate for plant height, number of branches per plant, fruit length, total yield; lower in days to seed germination and internodal length. High heritability with high genetic advance over the mean (GAM) was observed for number of fruits and average fruit weight. Other characters like number of branches and fruit length exhibited moderate; while number of leaves and days to first harvest shows lowest value. Characters having high heritability with high genetic advance, therefore, indicating involvement of additive gene effect in the inheritance of these traits and thus crop improvement could brought by reliable effective simple selection. Characters showing low GAM showing absent of such type of gene action, so selection is so complicated; hence heterosis breeding should be recommended. Thus, these characters may serve as effective selection parameter in mutation breeding programme for crop improvement.