Marappa, N.SHWETHA, H.R.2021-09-232021-09-232018-08-01Th-12025https://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810176093Predicting the breeding potential of a cross and early elimination of less productive crosses helps ease up the handling of large segregating populations derived from few promising crosses and hence enhance the efficiency of crop breeding. A study was undertaken to assess breeding potential of four crosses viz., PL-5 × IC-27749, PL-2 × EC-402104, PL-2 × NBC-39 and PL-5 × EC-402104 in cowpea. The crosses with high quantitative trait mean, absolute and standardized range, phenotypic coefficient of variation and frequency of transgressive segregants in F2 and F3 generations were considered to have better breeding potential. The results indicated that the cross PL-2 × NBC-39 followed by PL-5 × EC-402104 were found to have better breeding potential. Hence only these crosses should be forwarded to the next generations. Further, correlation studies indicated significant positive correlations of seed yield with clusters per plant, pods per plant, pods per cluster and seeds per pod, suggesting the use of these traits as surrogates to indirectly select for seed yield in cowpea. Moderate to high narrowsense heritability was recorded for clusters per plant, pods per plant, pod and seed yield per plant in the crosses indicating a prominent role of additive gene action in the expression of these traits. Hence, selection would be effective for these traits in early generation itself.EnglishThesis