Morphological characteristics, and coefficient of variation, heritability and genetic advance of major cultivars of spray chrysanthemum

The statistical analyses of coefficient of variation, heritability, and genetic advance were carried out to identify differences in morphological characteristics, such as the stem and inflorescence length, of 10 major commercial cultivars of spray chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum morifolium). For morphological characteristics, stem lengths ranged from 46.4 cm to 54.9 cm, the maximum diameter of stem was 5.6 to 8.5 mm, the hardness of the stem was 0.17 to 0.70 kg·m^-2, the fresh weight of stem was 7.5 to 17.5 g, the dry weight of the stem was 1.6 to 3.3 g, the ratio of dry weight/fresh weight of stem was 15.9% to 23.1%. Also, the number of leaves on the stem was 8.4 to 12.2, the stem leaf area was 17.8 to 37.8 m², the fresh weight stem leaves was 5.3 to 18.6 g, the dry weight was 0.5 to 1.4 g and the ratio of dry weight /fresh weight of stem leaves was 7.6% to 11.5%. The inflorescence length ranged from 10.1 to 18.6 cm, the fresh weight of inflorescence was 7.3 to 26.7 g, the dry weight of inflorescence was 1.2 to 2.8 g, the ratio of dry weight /fresh weight of inflorescence was 10.4% to 17.1%. For flower, the diameter of the flower center was 8.2 to 13.3 mm, the petal width was 5.7 to 14.0 mm, the petal length was 12.9 to 33.1 mm, and the petal thickness was 157.8 to 354.4μm. The mean values of each character in each cultivar were very different, and DMRT and LSD values based on morphological characteristics among 10 cultivars were highly significant. For variability and genetic parameters, the lowest CV (coefficient of variation), PCV (phenotypic coefficient of variation), and GCV (genotypic coefficient of variation) were 4.79% to 5.15% in stem length, and the highest variations were 62.97% to 65.21% in leaf area. ECV (error or environmental coefficient of variation) was the lowest for leaf area (1.71%) and it was the highest for leaf dry weight (19.30%). Heritability also significantly differed among the characteristics, ranging from 68.69% to 99.67%, the lowest value was shown in ratio of dry weight /fresh weight of stem and the highest value was for leaf area of stem. The value for genetic advance was the lowest in hardness of stem at 0.30 and the highest in leaf thickness at 156.65. The lowest genetic advance as percentage of mean of stem hardness was 9.17%, while the highest percentage of stem length was 134.27%. Thus the characters which had the highest values indicated above show the influence of additive gene action and may provide useful resources for selection programs for agronomic improvement.