Phenotypic Characterization of Foeniculum Vulgare (Fennel) Germplasm

Abstract

<jats:p>An experiment was conducted with sixty genotypes of fennel for phenotypic characterization of different vegetative characters such as plant height, branches per plant, primary branches per plant, secondary branches per plant, umbels per plant, umbellate per plant, seeds per umbellate, seeds per umbel and seed yield. Variability observed for quantitative traits showed high range variation for plant height, umbels per plant, umbellate per plant, seeds per umbellate, seeds per umbel and seed yield. Characterization of germplasm based on morphological parameters signifies the extent of variability present in the population and also provides needful information for selection of desirable genotypes for varietal development and also genotypes which can be conserved for unique traits. The identification keys based on morphological characters are very useful for identification of genotypes and have a pivotal role to identify genotypes in the field without any use of costly chemicals and are fairly comparable with their results.</jats:p>