Combining ability evaluation of intra hirsutm crosses for yield and its components in cotton

Abstract

In present investigation Line x Tester was designed to carried out evaluation of forty intra hirsutum hybrids, produced through crossing of 5 hirsutum lines (H1300, H1098i, H1117,H1226 and H1236) with 8 hirsutum testers (GN 67-1, HS-2, LH 1960, P 729-37, RS 875, Mahalaxmi, RST-9 and PIL-18), to generate information on general combining ability of the parents and specific combining ability of hybrids in respect of seed cotton yield, its attributing traits viz., boll number, boll weight, morphological traits viz., plant height, number of monopods, number of sympods and for important economic parameters viz.,ginning out turn, seed index and lint index.The 40 F1intra hirsutum hybrids were sown during Kharif 2015-16 in a randomized block design with three replications at CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Cotton Research Station Sirsa. From the estimates of additive and dominance variance, it is observed that SCA variance was greater than GCA variance for all the characters except boll weight, ginning out turn and lint index, indicating the involvement of both additive and non-additive gene effects with the preponderance of non-additive gene effect for genetic control of these characters. Among all the studied hybrids, cross combinations H1226 x RS 875, H1300 x P 729-37, H1300 x PIL-18, H1300 x HS-2 and H1098i x Mahalaxmi are found to be best specific combiners,while best general combiner are male parents LH 1960 &P 729-37and female parent H1098i.