Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi-221005
*Present address: I.G.A.R. Co-ordinated U.S.W.A. Research Project, R.B.S. College, Bichpuri, Agra-283105.
**Part of a thesis submitted by the senior author for the Ph.D. degree.
Combining ability for six yield contributing characters, plant height and spread, number of effective tillers and number of capsules per plant, average number of seeds per capsule and seed index was estimated from parents, F1, reciprocal F1 and F2 data of a diallel set of five linseed cultivars. Variance due to both general and specific combining ability was significant in all the traits. However, gca variance was larger in magnitude than that due to sca. Except in the case of average number of seeds per capsule, reciprocal differences were not significant. A comparison of the general combining ability effects revealed that variety NP 440 was an excellent general combiner for plant height and number of effective tillers while Mukta was superior for plant spread, 1206 and Neelum were promising for average number of seeds per capsule and seed index, respectively. Specific combining ability effect was limited in almost all the traits of the crosses. Creation of superior genotypes by fixing maximum possible favourable genes may be a desirable approach for breeding this crop.
