Journal of Crop Breeding

  Estimation of genetic variation is very important in breeding programs and existing of high genetic variation lead to increase the response to selection. The objective of this study was to investigate genetic variation for agronomic traits and yield components in 20 entries of sesame including 15 breeding lines and 5 local populations. The genotypes were evaluated in a randomized complete block design with three replications at the research farm of Isfahan University of Technology. The results of analysis of variance showed that there were significant differences among the genotypes for all of the studied traits. Seed yield/plant, seed yield/plot and seed oil content of the genotypes varied from 13.02 to 35 g, 1297 to 3239 kg/ha and 39.35 to 57.19%, respectively. The range of days to emergence and maturity, plant height, capsule length , capsules/plant, seed weight, seeds/capsules among the genotypes were 4 to 8.3 days, 139 to 172.7 days, 116.5 to 150 cm, 2.2 to 3.2 cm, 64 to 129 capsules , 0.454 to 0.637 g and 69 to 110 seeds/capsules, respectively. High broad-sence heritability and low difference between genetic and phenotypic coefficients of variation was found for all of the studied traits, except for days to emergence. The highest and lowest genetic and phenotypic coefficients of variation were observed for branches per plant (64.15 and 65.72%) and days to 50 percent flowering (2.14 and 2.37%) respectively. Cluster analysis classified the genotypes into two distinct groups of 6 and 14 genotypes.