Estimation of heterobeltiosis and standard heterosis for fruit yield and its attributes in brinjal (Solanum melongena L.)

Abstract

A diallel analysis was designed aiming towards the identification of best heterotic crosses for fruit yield and its component traits in brinjal (Solanum melongena L.). The present study was conducted at Vegetable Research Station, Junagadh Agricultural University, Junagadh during late kharif 2016-17 (crossing programme) and late Kharif 2017-18 (evaluation programme) in a randomized block design with three replications. Thirty six crosses crosses obtained by crossing 9 x 9 half diallel were evaluated for 6 biometric traits with their parents and check (GJBH-4). The analysis of variance revealed highly significant mean square differences due to genotypes for all the characters indicating that experimental material had sufficient genetic variability for all the characters under investigation. The genotypic variance was further partitioned into variance due to parents, hybrids and parents Vs hybrids. The mean square due to parents as well as hybrids was also highly significant for all the characters studied except mean square due to hybrids for average fruit weight suggesting the presence of considerable amount of genetic variability among the parents and the material which was most useful for the study of manifestation of heterosis and genetic parameters involved in the inheritance of different traits studied. Based on study of heterobeltiosis, it was found that number of primary braches per plant, average fruit weight, fruit length and number of fruit per plant were main contributors towards increase in heterotic effects for total fruit yield per plant. Five crosses viz., JBL-10-08-07 x Pant Rituraj, GJB-2 x JBR-15-01, GJB-2 x JBR-15-08, GJLB-4 x JBR-15-08 and JBR-15-08 x JBL-10-08-07 were best heterotic crosses over standard check for fruit yield per plant. These cross combination may utilize for further improvement to develop high yielding genotypes after due testing.