Department of Horticulture, Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar - 751 003, India.
* Address for correspondence: Plot No.3114, Samantarapur, Bhubaneswar-751002, India.
Evaluation of 28 nonreciprocal F1 hybrids of pumpkin revealed preponderance of domi nance and nonadditive gene action governing the inheritance of flowering attributes studied endured by low heritability in narrow sense. Pronounced epistasis was observed for number of flowers/plant. Overdomlnance was prevalent for all the traits. Frequent occurrence of dominant genes among parents were noticed for days to first male flower opening and node in which first male and female flowers appeared. Most dominant genes in the parents exerted positive effect for number of flowers/plant. Unequal distribution of positive and negative alleles showing dominance in parents were recorded for all the characters studied except number of flowers/plant. Heterosis breeding was suggested to develop early genotypes with higher number of flowers/plant, expected to improve productivity in pumpkin.
