Estimation of genetic parameters for various morphological characters in heliconia (Heliconia spp.)

Heliconia is one of the most important cut flowers and landscape plants due to their wide variability in growth habit and attractive flower characters combined with easy cultivation practices. The present investigation was carried out to assess the extent of variability among the 30 selected species and cultivars. The study also aimed at the evaluation of morphological and floral variability that exist in heliconia which will serve as a tool for identifying the varieties with potential for further breeding programmes and to exploit the ornamental attributes of Heliconia for the expanding tropical cut flower industry in Kerala. In general PCV was slightly higher than GCV in most of the characters indicating little influence of environment. The difference between phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV and PCV) was lowest for days taken for first flowering (0.05%), succeeded by plant spread (0.16%) and plant height (0.50%). In present study characters like days taken for flowering (99.78%) and plant spread (99.20%) recorded high heritability. The lowest heritability was recorded by number of flowers per bract with 73.79%. Highest genetic advance as percentage of mean was observed for leaf area (146.94%) followed by size of bract (140.33%).