Estimation of Genetic Variability and Character Association Analysis of Underutilized Ornamental Canna Lily (Canna indica L.)

Background: Canna lily (Canna indica L.) is an edible herbaceous perennial plant in which flowers and rhizomes were commonly used as a food additive and its potentiality was not fully utilized in India. To stun these hindrances, morphological characterizations are needed to determine the genetic variability to improve flower quality and rhizome yield in canna lily. Methods: In the present research, a field experiment was conducted during 2022-2023 in Botanical Garden, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. Twelve accessions were investigated by using a randomized block design with 3 replications. All the observations for 23 quantitative traits were carried out at 0.05 and 0.01 probability. Results: The wide range of genetic variability was observed, a high genetic coefficient of variation ranged from 8.49 to 75.62 % and a phenotypic coefficient of variation ranged from 8.83 to 76.50 % was observed in 20 traits except in time taken for first flowering, rhizome diameter, number of nodes per rhizome. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance as a percent of mean was observed for 21 traits except in time taken for flowering and number of nodes per rhizome. Character association analysis revealed that stem diameter and inflorescence length showed highly significant and positively correlated with flower yield and rhizome yield per plant. Path analysis specified that the number of leaves per clump had a very high and positive direct effect on fresh flower yield per plant.