Abstract

Opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L.), one of the oldest medicinal plants, produces more than eighty alkaloids including the analgesic morphine, the antitussive codeine and the muscle relaxant papaverine. Beside alkaloids, the crop is cultivated for seeds and seed oil. Downy mildew (DM) caused by fungus Peronospora arborescens (Berk) de Bary is one of the most destructive diseases of opium poppy which causes enormous loss in terms of both opium and seed yield. Therefore, development of DM-resistant poppy cultivars with high seed and straw yield is the most sustainable objective in opium poppy breeding. In the present study, the nature and degree of relationships between different marker and yield influencing traits including DM-resistance were studied using correlation and path coefficient analysis. The observations strongly support the effectiveness of selections for high seed and straw yield together with DM resistance by considering the said component traits individually or in combination for developing effective selection criteria for crop improvement. The results would help in development of disease resistant and high yielding cultivars in opium poppy.

Keywords

correlations; downy mildew; Papaver somniferum; path analysis; Peronospora arborescens; straw alkaloids

Published in

Acta Horticulturae
2014, volume: 1036, pages: 61-69

Conference

International Symposium on Papaver

Authors' information