A biometrical approach to evolving a selection index for seed parents in coconut (Cocos nucifera L.)

Abstract

An efficiency selection index for mother palms in coconut is evolved through the technique of principal component analysis. This index helps to select the superior genotypes through characters in the palm that can be measured at a given instant as against the present questionable system of selecting the superior phenotypes as mother palms and that too through yield data gathered over a period of as long as four years. The use of this index as a calibrating variate field experiments on coconut is also reommended in order to improve experimental precision.