Abstract

Many research works has been done on Black Cumin focused on its nutritional and medicinal properties. But there is inadequate
information on the association of yield and yield constituting traits of black cumin to improve its production. Therefore, correlation analysis
was made on thirty-six Black Cumin accessions evaluated at Jimma in simple lattice design during 2016, to quantify the relationship
between traits. The result of the analysis showed that seed had positive and highly significant correlation with number of effective capsule
(0.88), secondary branches (0.73), plant height (0.72), total branches (0.71), steam thickness (0.58), primary branches (0.52), tertiary
branches (0.52), harvesting index (0.47) and biological yield (0.43). Path coefficient analysis revealed that harvesting index, biological
yield and number of effective capsule exerted high and favorable direct contribution to seed yield at phenotypic level, whereas harvesting
index, biological yield, primary and tertiary branches, number of effective capsule and stem thickness showed positive direct effect at
genotypic level. The favorable direct effects of these traits on grain yield indicate that, other variables kept constant, improvement of
these traits will increase black cumin yield. Therefore, these traits should be kept in mind in the future breeding program of black cumin.

Keywords: Correlation; Path analysis; Black cumin; Seed yield; Yield components