A study was carried out on bidi tobacco at ARS Nipani, which consisted of newly derived breeding lines and genetic stock containing advanced breeding lines, local collections and released varieties for leaf yield, to evaluate in two experiments i) Nine genotypes including five newly derived lines and four check varieties, ii) 31 genotypes of genetic stock being maintained and seven released varieties. Observations on both the leaf yield and seed yield parameters were taken in the former experiment, and only seed yield parameters in the latter.
Advanced lines were on par with popular check variety A 119 for leaf yield per plant. Regarding seed yield parameters, A 119 was recorded high values for all the seed yield parameters, seed yield per plant, total number of pods per plant and pod weight per plant. The line NBD 319 was found promising for both leaf yield and seed yield traits. Wide range was observed for seed yield and yield component traits among germplasm lines compared to values among released varieties. Among the germplasm lines, those which recorded highest seed yield were also found promising for various seed yield parameters, number of pods per plant, pod weight per plant and seed index. The traits pod weight per plant and seed weight per plant were recorded with high estimates of heritability (0.68 and 0.78, respectively) and genetic advance (46.49% and 57.95%, respectively).
Correlation Coefficients analysis among advanced breeding lines revealed significant and positive association for leaf yield per plant with leaf length, leaf breadth with leaf length and number of leaves. Negative associations were observed between leaf yield components (plant height, number of leaves, internodal length and leaf breadth) and seed yield and yield components (pod weight per plant, seed weight per plant and seed index). Significant negative association between seed index and number of leaves was recorded. Whereas significant and positive association was observed for seed yield per plant with its component traits pod weight per plant and seed index.