Combining Ability Analysis for Grain Improvement in Linseed (Linum usitatissimum L.)

Ram Balak Prasad Nirala; Neha Rani; Awadhesh Kumar Pal

Ram Balak Prasad Nirala Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour, Bhagalpur, India.
Neha Rani Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour, Bhagalpur, India.
Awadhesh Kumar Pal Department of Biochemistry and Crop Physiology, Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour, Bhagalpur-813210, India.

Keywords: Linseed, diallel, GCA, SCA and grain yield

Abstract

Eight diverse parents of linseed (Linum usitatissimum L.) were used in diallel mating design (excluding reciprocal) to generate twenty eight crosses and evaluated against Shekhar as check in randomized block design for nine quantitative traits. General combining ability (GCA) of the parents and specific combining ability (SCA) of crosses were estimated for development of high yielding varieties. Analysis of variance revealed that the genotypes differed genetically from each others for all the nine characters studied. Combining ability analysis revealed that mean square due to GCA and SCA for days to 50% flowering, days to 50% maturity, plant height, number of primary branch, number seeds per capsules, oil percent and grain yield were significant. Genetic component of variances depicted that additive genetic variance were higher than non-additive genetic variance for plant height, number of capsules per plant and oil percent. Whereas, non-additive genetic variance was higher for rest of the characters studied. SLS72 was found to be good general combiner for grain yield and its attributing traits viz. Oil percent, number of capsules per plant, shorter plant height and early flowering. Crosses PKDL71 x LCK7035, NL260 x SLS72, NL260 x Shekhar, RL26018 x Shekhar, LCK7035 x BAU-06-05 and RL26018 x LCK7035 showed higher positive significant SCA effects for grain yield per plant.