Division of Horticulture, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi-12
*A part of the thesis submitted by A. B. PAL to the Post-Graduate School, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Horticulture.
Studies on the inheritance of curd characters and manifestation of heterosis in cauliflower indicated that dominance and epistasis contributed most towards inheritance of curd maturity, net weight and size of curd.
Heterosis manifested in terms of earliness of curd maturity (five to seven days), heavier curd weight (24.55–28.91 per cent.) and larger curd size (22.54–34.85 per cent.) over the better parent. Besides dominance and epistasis, over-dominance was also found in some cases to cause heterosis. Presence of significant additiveness and complementary epistasis found in many crosses may be favourable for improvement of the heterotic hybrids by selection in later generations. Transgressive segregation observed in the F2 generation may also prove useful for this purpose. The use of F2 seeds, due to superior performance of some of the hybrids over the better parent and sometimes over the F1 hybrid, may be feasible and economical.
