Critical Analysis of Correlation and Direct and Indirect Effects of Some Economic Characters in Silkworm (Bombyx mori L.)

Ten economic traits were taken to detect the relationship as well as find out direct and indirect effects among the characters of ten silkworm (Bombyx mori L.) lines. Correlation analysis revealed that Y/100 DFLS showed a positive correlation with all the characters except SR% at both the phenotypic and genotypic levels. But Y/100 DFLS significantly correlated with all the characters except renditta at both the phenotypic and genotypic levels indicating the effectiveness for directional selection for genetic improvement of yield and suggested that with the increases of those characters Y/100 DFLS will be increased. In case of path coefficient analysis, characters ERRwt, SSwt and denier at phenotypic level and all the characters except Wt10ML and SSwt at genotypic level exhibited a direct positive effect on Y/100 DFLS which revealed their contribution to the yield and selection can be made by using these characters. It was noted that in path coefficient analysis ERRwt showed the highest direct effect on Y/100 DFLS both at phenotypic and genotypic levels. From the results of correlation and path coefficient analysis, it can be concluded that ERRwt was the most important yield contributing character as it exhibited significant positive correlation and highest direct effect on Y/100 DFLS both at phenotypic and genotypic levels followed by denier since denier showed positive direct effect both at genotypic and phenotypic levels.