Combining ability and gene effect for yield and quality characters in brinjal (Solanum melongena L.)

Abstract

The present investigation was undertaken to identify the good general combiners and specific cross combinations alongwith suggestion for adoption of breeding methodology for improvement in brinjal (Solanum melongena L.). Sixty crosses generated in a line x tester mating design with fifteen lines and four testers were evaluated alongwith parents in a randomized block design with three replications during kharif 2003-2004. The parents had two row, whereas F1s and F2s each had 3 rows of 5m length in each replication. The row to row and plant to plant distance was kept 60cm in each treatment. Five plants from each parents and F1s and 10 plants in F2s in each replication were selected at random for recording the data on days to flowering (DF), days to marketable maturity (DMM), plant height (PH), number of branches per plant (B/P), number of fruits per plant (F/P), length of fruit (LF), width of fruit (WF), fruit weight (WF), plant spread (PS) and yield per plant (YIP). The mean values of each genotype were subjected to combining ability analysis by line x tester as per method of Kempthorne [1].