COMBINING ABILITY ANALYSIS FOR SEED YIELD AND QUALITY COMPONENTS OF SEED AND OIL IN LINSEED (LINUM USITATISSIMUM L.)

Abstract

Combining ability study was carried out for seed yield and quality traits based on pooled data of a diallel set of 10 diverse varieties of linseed grown in four environments (E). It revealed highly significant variances for gca and sca x E for all the characters and sca and gca x E for all the traits except oil content. Among the parents, T 397 proved to be a good general combiner for seed yield per plant, Neelum for palmitic acid and stearic acid, LCK 152 for oil, linoelic acid and reduced linoleic acid contents, while LC 185 was the best general combiner for high linolenic acid. In sca effects, the crosses SPC 23-10 x LC 185 for seed yield per plant, oleic acid and low content of linolenic acid, Sweta x LCK 152 for palmitic acid and oleic acid and Neelum X R 17 for iodine value and higher linolenic acid content were promising.