Genetic Changes in A Population Subjected To Biparental Mating in Opium Poppy

In a commercial population of opium poppy, biparental mating (ncd-1) was exercised to generate 80 BIPs which were tested in initial and advance evaluation trials in subsequent years. Six elite BIPs were finally analysed for stability of performance. Results indicated that biparental mating enlarged the spectrum of variation for diverse traits and caused a shift in the mean performance of BIPs. Release of latent variability due to forced recombination and breaking of undesirable linkages, thus changing the character associations could be the possible reasons for BIP's superiority over the parental base population. As such, biparental mating has been suggested to be utilized as an effective alternative to conventional breeding procedures for rapid improvement of the opium poppy.