Selection of Parental Material of Chickpea (Cicer Arietinum L.) For Yield and Its Components

Line x Tester analysis was performed in chickpea using two females, eight males and their sixteen crosses to select best parents and crosses for further breeding program. The higher magnitude of additive gene effects for earliness and non additive gene effects for other traits was noticed. Among the females, JAKI 9218 for 100 seed weight and seed yield and among the males, HC 5 for seed yield, plant height, branches/plant and pods/plant were identified as good general combiner to exploit as a donor in further. The crosses viz., JAKI 9218 x Bushy Mutant, JAKI 9218 x JG 62 and ICCV 2 x HC 5 were identified as best combinations for plant height, 100 seed weight, pods/plant and seed yield. In addition to this ICCV 2 x HC 5 exhibited high SCA for earliness. Parents involved in these crosses were good general combiners for different traits. The parent JAKI 9218 and cross JAKI 9218 x Gulak 1 and JAKI 9218 x AKG 10-1 were most promising on the basis of combining ability. To obtain superior transgressive segregants, either biparental or diallel selective mating is suggested.