Standard heterosis in pigeonpea and on-farm validation of two A4 CMS-based Hybrid

Abstract

Study was conducted to estimate the extents of standard heterosis in ten medium maturing A4 CMS-based pigeonpea hybrids for yield and related traits under three diverse environments during 2012-13. Treatment differences and genotype- environment interaction effects, as revealed by pooled analysis, were significant for all the traits. Significant positive heterosis over the pure line control cultivar was recorded for plot yield, yield/plant, pods/plant, seeds/pod, seed size and canopy height. The most promising hybrids identified were ICPH 2671 and ICPH 2740 with, respectively, 55 and 59 % standard heterosis. These hybrids confirmed their high (46- 47%) superiority over the pure line cultivar in 1007 on-farm trials conducted in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh around the India.