B I O L I F E O R I G I N A L A R T I C L E GENETIC PARAMETERS OF YIELD AND YIELD COMPONENTS POOLED OVER ENVIRONMENTS IN SESAMUM (SESAMUM INDICUM L.) P. Jhansi Rani 1* , P.V. Rama Kumar 2 1,2 Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, ANGRAU, Agricultural College, Bapatla 522 101, Andhra Pradesh. . E-mail: jhansiranipuli@gmail.com ABSTRACT An investigation was carried out to assess the genetic parameters i.e variability, heritability and genetic advance for nine characters viz., plant height, days to 50% flowering, number of primaries, number of secondaries, number of capsules per plant, number of seeds per capsule, 1000 seed weight, oil content and seed yield plant in 10 genotypes over six environments during Kharif, 2010 and Rabi 2010-11. Significant differences were observed for all the characters among the genotypes studied for pooled analysis of six environments. The results revealed that high GCV and PCV were observed for the characters viz., seed yield per plant, number of capsules per plant, number of secondaries per plant and number of seeds per capsule in the pooled analysis of six environments studied. The characters seed yield per plant, number of secondaries, number of seeds per capsule and number of capsules per plant had shown high heritability accompanied by high genetic advance over pooled environments. The traits number of capsules per plant, number of seeds per capsule, seed yield per plant, and number of secondaries are found little influenced by environment. Key words: Variability, heritability, genetic advance and Sesamum indicum L INTRODUCTION Sesame is one of the important oil seed crops cultivated in India and called as “Queen of oil seed crops” by virtue of its excellent quality. It is having the highest oil content (46-64%) and dietary energy (6355 Kcal/kg). Though sesamum production is high in india, its productivity is low when compared to world average. Crop improvement in sesamum has been practiced for a long time. Yet a major breakthrough could not be made in realizing high yields in sesame varieties. One of the reasons is that there is limited genetic variability in the source material, which is pre requisite for initiating any breeding programme. It is a seasonal and location bound crop hence, a particular variety does not perform uniformly in all locations and in all seasons. Information on nature and magnitude of variability present in a population due to genetic and non genetic causes is an important pre requisite for a systemic breeding programme to improve the yield potential of genotypes. Hence an attempt was made to study the amount of genetic variability present in ten genotypes of sesamum from pooled data of six environments. MATERIALS AND METHODS Ten genotypes of sesamum were sown on 6 sowing dates i.e., 3 sowing dates in kharif (17.07.2010, 2.08.2010 and 17.08.2010) and 3 sowing dates in rabi (2.12.2010, 17.12.2010 and AN INTERNATIONAL QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF BIOLOGY & LIFE SCIENCES 1(4):231-234 ISSN (online): 2320-4257 www.biolifejournal.com Biolife | 2013 | Vol 1 | Issue 4 231