Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2020) 9(7): 794-799 794 Original Research Article https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2020.907.091 Cause and Effect Relationship to Identify Important Yield Contributing Traits in Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) Mohammad Irfan 1 *, Sabina Nasseer 1 , Uzma Rashid 2 and M. Ashraf Bhat 1 1 Division of Genetics and Plant Breeding, 2 Division of Plant Pathology, SKUAST Kashmir, India *Corresponding author ABSTRACT Introduction Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) belongs to family Iridaceae is the most expensive spice in the world and is popularly known as the “Golden Condiment”. In India it is a legendary crop of Jammu and Kashmir, produced on well drained karewa soils, where ideal climatic conditions are available for good shoot growth and flower production. The genus Crocus includes native species from Europe, North Africa and temperate Asia, and is especially well represented in arid countries of South-Eastern Europe and Western and Central Asia (Fernández, 2004). Dried stigmas of saffron flowers compose the most expensive spice which has been valuable since ancient times for its odoriferous, coloring, and medicinal properties (Plessner et al., 1989). The possibility of saffron genetic improvement is indicated through clonal selection from the available germplasm resources. Identification of these elite genotypes with distinct superiority in yield and corm attributes can be used as a source International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 9 Number 7 (2020) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com The present investigation was carried out at Saffron Research Station Pampore, (SKUAST-K) during Rabi 2017-18. Observations were recorded on 10 randomly selected and tagged competitive plants for eighteen (18) morphological, floral and corm traits viz, number of flowers line -1 , number of days to 50% flowering, total flower weight corm -1 , inner tepal length, outer tepal length, inner tepal width, outer tepal width, anther length, anther width, style length, stigma length, fresh pistil weight line -1 , leaf length, dry pistil weight line -1 , number of leaves corm - 1 line -1 , number of days to 50% sprouting, big Corm Index and multiplication index. The path analysis revealed that stigma length and flower weight recorded highest direct effect towards dry pistil weight followed by number of flowers per corm per line, fresh pistil weight and big corm index. Rest of the traits as recorded the negative direct effect of multiplication index, number of days to 50% flowering, number of days to 50% sprouting on the dependant variable. Keywords Saffron, variable, direct effect, indirect effect, path coefficient analysis Accepted: 08 June 2020 Available Online: 10 July 2020 Article Info