Evaluation of lustre and physical attributes of wool in Marwari and Nali sheep breeds

Marwari and Nali are two important carpet wool producing breeds of sheep in India. The wool of Nali breed was more lustrous and finer than that of Mar wari. The least-squares means for wool quality traits i.e. tenacity, extens ion, reflectance, fluorescence, total, ratio, diameter and medullation of w ool fibre have been estimated to be 6.48+/-0.167 g/tex, 23.37+/-0.53%, 176. 43+/-3.899 root T, 111.20+/-2.664 root T, 287.79+/-6.402 root T, 1.08+/-0.1 03, 32.91+/-0.528 mu and 51.42+/-2.052% in Marwari and 6.42+/-0.144 g/tex, 21.55+/-0.464%, 215.67+/-3.359 root T, 140.08+/-2.295 root T, 355.67+/-5.51 6 root T, 0.6+/-0.088, 28.33+/-0.455 mu and 50.80+/-1.768% in Nali. The heritability estimates for tenacity, extension, reflectance, fluorescen ce, total (r+f) and medullation revealed that all the traits had moderate t o high heritability, indicating that phenotypic selection for individual tr ait would be quite effective. The phenotypic correlations among the quality traits indicate that the selection index would be a better choice if simul taneous selection in quality traits is desired.