8 Journal of Oilseed Brassica, 10 (1) January, 2019 Journal of Oilseed Brassica, 10 (1) : 8-13, January 2019 Genetic variability studies for quality traits in rapeseed-mustard Asif M Iqbal a , MS Sujith Kumar b , S Najeeb a , FA Sheikh a , ZA Dar c , PA Sofi c , I Abidi d and AB Shikari a a Mountain Research Centre for Field Crops (MRCFC), Khudwani, Anantnag SKUAST Kashmir 190025, India, b ICAR-DRMR, Bharatpur 321303, Rajasthan, c DARS, Budgam, SKUAST Kashmir, d Directorate of Research, SKUAST-K, Kashmir *Corresponding author: asifquresh@gmail.com (Received: 12 Nov 2018; Revised: 12 Dec 2018; Accepted: 21 Dec2018) Abstract Brassica oil is the world’s third most important sources of edible vegetable oils diet, since they provide energy, improve taste, palatability of food. The fatty acid composition of oil is extremely important as the presence or absence of different fatty acids and their relative amounts determine the nutritional quality of the oil. The present study was carried out in the biochemistry laboratory of ICAR-DRMR, Bharartpur during 2015- 16 for the fatty acid profiling with the wield of Gas Chromatography using twenty five advanced breeding lines of Gobhi Sarson (Brassica napus L.) and three released varieties of brown sarson (B. rapa var. Brown Sarson). All the genotypes were genetically maintained at MRCFC, Khudwani, SKUAST-Kashmir, India. The results have revealed that the oleic acid in the 28 genotypes ranged from 22.58 to 56.67%, while as the linoleic & linolenic acid ranged from 16.63 to 29.05 % and 4.58 to 26.76 respectively. The erucic acid an anti-nutritional factor also showed wide range and the study has identified genotypes KGS-8, KGS-10, KGS-36 and KGS-40 for low erucic acid (less than 2 percent). KGS-10 was identified for the canola type as the said genotype contained the erucic acid of 1.99% & glucosinolate content of 26.3 ìmole per gram in the defatted meal (double zero).The study has further revealed that the erucic acid showed significantly high, but negative correlation with oleic acid (-0.92), linoleic acid (-0.83) and linolenic acid (-0.52), whileas significant and positive correlation was observed with Palmitic+Stearic acid (0.03) and glucosinolate content (0.16).The considerable genetic variation and high heritability for different fatty acid composition suggested that selection for improving some of the fatty acid composition would be promising in the future breeding programme. Kew words: Fatty acid composition, genetic variability, rapeseed-mustard Introduction Oilseed rape has been cultivated for thousands of years in Asia andthe Indian subcontinent and then later in Europe (Asif et al., 2015). Among the oilseeds, 7.98 MT of Rapeseed-Mustard was produced in India during 2016- 17 from an area of 6.0 Mha with a productivity of 13.24 q/ ha (Anonymous, 2018). In state of Jammu and Kashmir, the crop occupied an area of 54.52 thousand hectares and the production of 326 thousand quintals with an average productivity of 5.98 q/ha (Anonymous, 2015- 16). In the rapeseed-mustard group, brown sarson (Brassica rapa var. Brown Sarson) is the major oilseed crop of Kashmir valley grown in Rabi season and is the only crop which fits well in the oilseed– paddy rotation, because of having great buffering capacity to withstand frost conditions and comparatively early maturing than any other rabi cereal crop. Lot of research efforts have been focussedtowards rapeseed-mustard breeding programme, with the objective to increase production, productivity and sustainability of oilseed-based cropping systems and to raise the farm income of the poor farmers of the valley. The rapeseed breeding strategies are mostly dealing with developing varieties characterized by high and stable seed and oil yield , as well as by low content of glucosinolates and erucic acids (Ali et al ., 2003). The fatty acid composition controls functional and nutritional values of different vegetable oils, varying considerably depending on the plant species (Sharafi et al., 2015). The saturated fatty acids (SFAs) includes Palmitic acid whereas, the unsaturated fatty acids are either monounsaturated (MUPAs) i.e. erucic acid and oleic acid or polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) such as omega- 3- alpha- linolenic acid and omega-6- linoleic acid which are nutritionally important (Rai et al., 2018). The presence and absence of these fatty acids determine the nutritional quality of the edible oils (Bhattacharya et al., 2012). This has attracted researchers to seek new sources of oil or new fatty acids composition within wide varieties of plant species. The presence of genetic variation for fatty acid composition and its utilization has been found to be essential for genetical improvement of the oil quality and subsequently developing new cultivars (Murphy, 1995). A diverse germplasm repository of rapeseed-mustard,