Present address 1 Upazila Agriculture Officer DAE 2 Upazila Rural Development Officer, BRDB. Scientific Officer 3 IWM Division and 4 Soil Science Division, BRRI, Gazipur 5 BARI, Gazipur. Correspondence nazrulag@gmail.com Accepted: 21 November, 2016 CORRELATION AND PATH COEFFICIENT ANALYSIS FOR QUANTITATIVE CHARACTERS IN T. AMAN RICE MJ Karim 1 F Jesmin 2 MH Ali 3 MN Islam 4* and E Mahmud 5 Abstract An experiment was conducted at the experimental field laboratory of the department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, during the period from July to December, 2008. Correlation and path coefficients analyses among twelve morphological characters were studied in twenty-five traditional and HYV Aman rice to investigate interrelationship between yield and yield contributing characters and their direct and indirect effect on yield. The experiment revealed that days to 50% flowering, effective tillers, panicle length, weight of grain per panicle, filled grain, days to maturity, leaf area and 1000 grain weight showed significant positive correlation with grain yield whereas unfilled grain per panicle showed significant negative correlation with grain yield. Path coefficient analysis revealed highest positive direct effect of days to maturity on grain yield but unfilled grain per panicle had negative direct effect on grain. Key words: Phenotypic correlation, residual effect, yield and yield contributing characters Introduction Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the staple food for nearly half of the world’s population. Rice is widely cultivated in both the tropical and sub-tropical regions. This crop is widely distributed around the world, in as broad range as 50 o N to 40 o S and from the sea level to altitudes of more than 2500m. Rice and agriculture are still fundamental to the economic development of the most Asian countries. In Bangladesh, rice is the most dominant cereal crop, which occupies about 77% of the total cropped area of 13.9 million hectare (BBS, 2010). At present rice alone constitutes about 92% of the food grains produced annually in the country. It provides about 75% of the calories and 66% of the protein in the average daily diet of the people (Bhuiyan et al., 2002). Rice is grown in Bangladesh under diverse ecosystem of irrigated, rain fed and deep-water conditions in three distinct seasons namely Aus, Aman, and Boro (Rashid, 1994). But the average yield of T. Aman rice production per hectare is very low as compared to Boro. It is notable that the area coverage of Aman is the largest as a single crop and Boro remains the second (BBS, 2016). The production of Aman depends on the weather condition of the country. Under the situation breeder have to develop more high yielding Aman varieties for upland rainfed area which would enhance the yield potential thereby rice production in Aman season. Yield of rice is a contribution of various component characters such as number of panicle/hill, number of filled grains/panicle, 1000-grain weights, etc. So, information on correlation coefficients between grain yield and its component characters is essential for yield improvement, since grain yield in rice is a complex entity and is highly influenced by several component characters. Studies on path co-efficient also provide useful information regarding the direct and indirect effects of different yield component characters on grain yield and thus aid in the identification of effective selection criteria for effective yield improvement. Therefore, it is necessary to know the relationship between and among component characters with yield and others. The traits usually show a complex chain of interacting relationship (Akanda et al., 1995). Therefore, the present study was undertaken to study the interrelationship between yield and yield contributing characters and their direct and indirect effect on yield. Methods and Materials The experiment was conducted at the experimental field laboratory of the department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, during the period from July to December, 2008. The land was medium high belonging to the Sonatola Soil series of non-calcareous dark grey flood plain soil type under the Old Brahmaputra Flood plain of Agro-ecological Zone-9, (UNDP and FAO, 1988; Islam et al., 2013a; Islam et al., 2013b; Islam et al., 2014 and Islam et al., 2016;). The pH value of the soil is around 6.5 and non-flooded with Sandy loam in texture. The experimental area has sub-tropical climate. Usually the rainfall is heavy in Kharif and scanty in Rabi season. There was heavy rain with high temperature during the vegetative, the flowering and maturity stage of the crop. The experimental materials included twenty-five rice varieties of both local and high yielding varieties. These are Jhinga Sail DA-15, Laxmi Bilash, Bajal, Eco-friendly Agril. J. 9 (11):79-82, 2016 (November) www.efaj-international.com