General and Specific Combining Ability Studies in Brinjal (Solanum melongena L.)

Ravi Kumar; Randhir Kumar; Sangeeta Shree; Amit Kumar; Divakar Kumar Bharati; Saksham Kumar Sinha

Ravi Kumar Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour, Bhagalpur 813210, India.
Randhir Kumar Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour, Bhagalpur 813210, India.
Sangeeta Shree Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour, Bhagalpur 813210, India.
Amit Kumar Birsa Agricultural University, Ranchi, Jharkhand 834006, India.
Divakar Kumar Bharati Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour, Bhagalpur 813210, India.
Saksham Kumar Sinha Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour, Bhagalpur 813210, India.

Keywords: General combining ability, specific combining ability, brinjal

Abstract

This experiment aimed to determine General Combining Ability (GCA) and Specific Combining Ability (SCA) of six parental lines; SBRB-6/12, SBRB-1/12, KS-224, SBRB-2/12, Swarna Mani and SBRB-3/12 through full-diallel parental crosses. Experiment was conducted from June 2012 to march 2013 and designed in Randomized Complete Block with three replications. The combining ability analysis revealed highly significant differences among the treatments for all the parameters studied except days to 50% flowering and number of primary branches per plant. The genotype SBRB-6/12 was found best general combiner for number of fruit per plant and yield per plant. The top three crosses (SBRB-3/12 x SBRB-2/12, SBRB-6/12 x SBRB-3/12 and KS-224 x Swarna Mani) with high per se performance have exhibited high SCA effects for yield. Both additive and non-additive gene actions were operating for all the characters except days to 50% flowering, fruit diameter and number of primary branches per plant. Therefore, the general combiner can be exploited for the creation of varieties and the presence of specific combinining ability in the hybrids.