Punjab Agricultural Department, Agricultural Research Station, Ferozepore
*Present address: Wheat Breeding substation, I.A.R.I., Simla.
In the present investigation, intervarietal crosses in Nicotiana tabacum were studied with regard to the mode of inheritance of four quantitative characters. In the cross T 17 X T 291 study, a few major factors were found to be conditioning leaf length and breadth. The heritability of length and breadth was 67.19% and 44.18% respectively; it appears that phenotypic selection would be efficacious. The similarity in the mode of inheritance of both length and breadth of leaf in this cross suggests that the same major genes may be responsible for the determination of length and breadth. Earliness, studied in the cross T 23 X T 165, is governed by multiple factors. The heritability in respect of earliness was calculated to be 44.77%. Plant height, studied in T 17 X T 399, appeared to be an oligogenic character. The heritability of this character was 56.92% which is moderately high and single plant selection may be practicable.
