ESTIMATION OF GENETIC PARAMETERS OF PONGAMIA PINNATA L. SEEDLINGS IN NURSERY

– The present investigation was carried out at Forest College and Research Institute, Mettupalayam, Tamil Nadu to identify the best CPTs of Pongamia pinnata across its natural distribution areas in Coimbatore and Dharmapuri for further collection of seeds for afforestation or breeding purpose. In the nursery experiment the progeny PP 8, PP 12 and PP 14 showed better than others. The evaluation under nursery conditions showed that the progeny PP 14 expressed superiority for all the four traits viz., plant height, collar diameter, number of branches and volume index while the progeny PP 19 also performed well for a minimum of three morphometric traits. In biometric traits, volume index had registered the highest PCV, GCV and genetic advance as percentage of mean followed by number of branches. Volume index was highly and positively associated with basal diameter at phenotypic level and with plant height at genotypic level. In Path analysis indicated that collar diameter and plant height had direct positive effect on volume index. Hence, collar diameter and plant height could be used as selection indices in Pongamia pinnata .