HETEROSIS AND COMBINING; ABILITY STUDIES IN BAJRA [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br.]
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Date
2005
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AAU, Anand
Abstract
Pearl millet is one of the important staple food crops of India ranking fourth in acreage. Being a drought tolerant crop, it has become an important component of dry land farming. The present investigation on pearl millet comprised of 5 CMS - based females, 10 males, 50 F1 hybrids and 3 check hybrids GHB-526, GHB-558 and MH-169. The experiment was laid out in randomized block design with 3 replications with inter row spacing of 60 cm and intra row spacing of 15 cm at Plant Breeding and Cytogenetics Research Farm, B.A. College of Agriculture, Anand during kharif 2004. Heterosis, combining ability effects and components of genetic variances were estimated for days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, plant height, number of leaves per plaint, number of tillers per plant, number of effective tillers per plant, fresh weight per plant, dry fodder yield per plant, grain yield per plant, biological yield per plant, harvest index, earhead length, earhead girth, earhead weight and test weight The analysis of variance indicated significant differences among genotypes for all the traits except harvest index. Parents differed significantly for all the traits except number of tillers per plant, number of effective tillers per plant and harvest index. In case of hybrids, variance was significant for all the traits excluding earhead weight, which suggested existence of difference between parents and hybrids leading to evidence for manifestation of heterosis. Several hybrids exhibited heterobeltiosis and economic heterosis for grain yield per plant and other yield attributing characters. The hybrid worth for commercial exploitation of heterosis were ICMA 92777 x 98 SB, ICMA 96555 x 187 SB, JMSA 20005 X 211 SB, ICMA 96555 x 211 SB and JMSA 98222 x 187 SB. The analysis of combining ability revealed that non additive gene action solely governed the traits namely days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, number of leaves, number of tillers and number of effective tillers, fresh weight, biological yield, earhead weight, grain yield, dry fodder yield and harvest index. While, preponderence of additive gene action was observed for earhead length, earhead girth and test weight The estimates of general combining ability effects indicated that none of the parents was good general combiner for all the characters studied. The estimates of specific combining ability indicated ICMA 96555 x 187 SB as the best cross for grain yield followed by JMSA 101 A x 217 SB. The three hybrids ICMA 92777 x 98 SB, ICMA 96555 x 187 SB and JMSA 20005 x 211 SB showed high per se performance, higher heterotic effects and significant sea effects hence those could be exploited for heterosis and for developing high yielding varieties following appropriate breeding methodology.
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Keywords
PLANT BREEDING AND GENETICS, AGRICULTURE, A STUDY