*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 requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Horticulture.
Division of Horticulture, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Delhi-12
Studies on the inheritance of leaf number, leaf size index, plot yield and number of marketable curds, indicated that dominance and epistasis, especially dominance x dominance, had a major role. Appreciable additive effect was observed for leaf number and leaf size. Plot yield and number of marketable curds had lower contribution of epistatic effect than the other two characters in the crosses studied.
The F1 hybrids had higher leaf number, larger leaf size and higher plot yield as compared to the better parent. There was no significant heterosis in the number of marketable curds. The heterosis in leaf number was mainly due to dominance while in leaf size it was due to additive x dominance and additive X additive epistasis. Overdominance was responsible for heterosis in yield.
Useful transgressive segregates for various characters were observed in the F2 generation which indicated the possibility of their utilization in the improvement of these characters.
