Department of Plant Breeding, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana
The nature and magnitude of combining ability effects in 42 crosses of G. hirsutum cotton involving 3 tester parents with 14 pollinators was studied in respect of yield and quality characters. The variance due to specific combining ability was higher than that for general combining ability of males and females in case of yield and boll number. The crosses manifesting high specific combining ability involved at least one high general combining parent and in no case was a low × low combination superior. The two best crosses involved low × high combiners. The crosses exhibiting high specific combining ability for yield also had high or average combining ability for yield components.
