Heterosis studies in ash gourd [<i>Benincasa hispida </i> (Thunb) Cogn.] for yield and related traits
Keywords:
Diallel crossing, Hybrid vigour, Earliness, Wax gourd.Abstract
Ten elite inbred lines of ash gourd (Benincasa hispida) were selected based on their performance and were crossed in a diallel mating system (without reciprocal crosses) to generate 45 F1 hybrids. These hybrids along with the parents were grown to study heterosis in 10 yield related characters. The mid and better parent heterosis was observed to be as high as ~165% for yield per vine in DAG-6 × DAG-11. The maximum negative heterosis over the best parent for days to fruit maturity was noticed in cross DAG-2 × DAG-9 (~ –10%) indicating that it can be successfully utilized in breeding for earliness in ash gourd. Two hybrids namely, DAG-1 × DAG-5 (34.33 kg) and DAG-4 × DAG-11 (31.67 kg) recording positive heterosis over the best parent to the extent of 23.5% and 14.0% respectively for yield per vine can be utilized for commercial cultivation.Downloads
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