Inheritance of some Fruit Characters in Okra

Mode of inheritance of some fruit characters in three intervarietal crosses of okra was investigated.

In intervarietal crosses between three varieties of okra having purple, green and creamy fruits, a multiple allelic series appeared to control fruit colour, green being dominant over cream while purple was dominant over both green and cream. The studies also revealed a digenic nature of control of fruit shape. The perfect angular shape of fruit appears only when the two dominant genes are present in homozygous condition. The round fruits appear only in the presence of both the recessive alleles. The analysis of mode of inheritance of fruit hairiness was found to be difficult due to presence of wide range of variation in nature of hairiness in the F₂; a broad grouping of segregating classes in the ratio of 1 with prickly hair; 2 with non prickly hair: 1 non hairy, suggested monogenic control of this character.