KUMAR, MANISHNALWA, CHERRY2019-08-032019-08-032019-07http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810118893ABSTRACT The present study entitled “Combining ability analysis of fruit, seed yield and component traits in sweet pepper (Capsicum annuum L. var. grossum)” was carried out under greenhouse conditions at the Experimental Farm of the Department of Seed Science, Dr YS Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan, Himachal Pradesh during the years 2017 and 2018. The experimental material for the present study comprised of six parents and their fifteen crosses which were developed by crossing these six diverse red sweet pepper lines in diallel design (excluding reciprocals). All the parents and their hybrids along with the standard check (Bomby) were planted in Randomized Block Design for their evaluation in kharif, 2018. The observations were recorded on eleven different traits, viz., days to first flowering, fruit set (%), number of fruits per plant, fruit weight (g), fruit yield (kg per plant), days to first ripe fruit harvesting, number of seeds per fruit, seed weight per fruit (g), seed yield per plant (g), thousand seed weight (g) and percent seed recovery. The analysis of variance indicated highly significant differences among the genotypes for all the traits studied. Experimental results revealed that two lines viz., RSPUHF-7 and RSPUHF-2 were found to be superior for earliness. Whereas, the parents RSPUHF-4 and RSPUHF-2 were superior on the basis of mean performance and general combining ability studies for fruit yield and seed component traits. Crosses RSPUHF-7 x RSPUHF-2 and RSPUHF-7 x RSPUHF-1 were found to be the best for earliness. Three cross combinations viz., RSPUHF-3 x RSPUHF-2, RSPUHF-4 x RSPUHF-2 and RSPUHF-5 x RSPUHF-2 were found to be the best on the basis of mean performance, heterosis studies and specific combining ability effects for fruit and seed yield traits. The parents showing earliness, better yield and component traits and seed yield traits can be released as open pollinated varieties for commercial cultivation. Similarly, the hybrids showing earliness, better yield and component traits and seed yield attributes along with per se performance can be adopted for commercial cultivation after their multilocation testing.ennullThesis