*Wheat Research Station, Junagadh Agricultural University, Junagadh-362 001 (Gujarat)
Department of Agricultural, Botany College of Agriculture, Junagarh Agricultural University, Junagarh (Gujarat)
The experimental material composed of ten lines, four testers and their forty hybrids produced by using line x tester mating design was evaluated for standard (economic) heterosis and heterobeltiosis studies in vegetable cowpea during khrif 2007. Analysis of variance revealed significant differences among the parents and hybrids for all the characters studied. Mean squares due to parents vs hybrids were also observed significant for all the traits except plant height and number of pods per cluster. The hybrids JCPL 43 x Pusa Phalguni, JCPL 88 x Arka Garima, JCPL 86 x Arka Garima and JCPL 18 x Pusa Phalguni showed exploitable standard heterosis and heterobeltiosis for green pod yield and important yield components offering possibilities for selection of transgrassive segregants in subsequent generations. Most of the crosses exhibiting significant heterobeltiosis or economic heterosis were found to involve JCPL 14, JCPL 16, JCPL 18, JCPL 20, JCPL 43, JCPL 86 and JCPL 88 among lines and Pusa Phalguni, Arka Garima and GC 4 among testers as one of the parents indicting that these parents may provide basic material for cowpea breeding programme.
vegetable cowpea, heterosis
