Indian Society of Genetics & Plant Breeding
Nine parental lines of bottlegourd and their 36 F1 hybrids
obtained from half diallel were studied to investigate the
extent of heterosis and general and specific combining
ability effects for yield and yield attributing characters.
The mean squares due to GCA and SCA were significant
for all the characters. The ratio, &2 gcal &2 sca suggested
that non-additive gene action had greater role in the
inheritance of all the characters except for average weight
of marketable fruit, node at which first female flower
appeared, number of branches per plant and vine length,
where additive gene action had played an important role.
Out of the nine parents, UL-4 was adjudged the best
general combiner as it depicted high gca effect In desirable
direction for most of the traits. Regarding sca effects,
UL-2 x UL-4 showed highest sca effects for total fruit
yield and UL-2 x UL-10 for days to first harvest. The
extent of heterosis over the three best crosses for total
fruit yield per plant (68.44-91.02% over better parent and
80.94-89.47% over check variety) revealed that there was
a great scope of realizing higher yield in bottlegourd
through heterosis breedi~. The cross combination UL-2
x UL-4 registered the highest economic heterosis (89.47%)
for total fruit yield and other characters including earliness.
Keywords: Bottlegourd. heterosis, combining ability
Year: 2003
Volume: 63
Issue: 2
Article DOI: NA
Print ISSN: 0019-5200
Online ISSN: 0975-6906
S.K.Dubey andl.B.Maurya info_circle
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