Diallel Analysis in Soybean

A diallel study for six quantitative characters in soybean was conducted at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, during kharif 1972. The study revealed that complex characters, like grain yield, pods and clusters per plant, were controlled by both additive and non-additive gene action. The discrepancy in the estimation of genetic components of variance through various analyses may have arisen due to the presence of interallelic interactions. For 100-grain weight and plant height additive genetic variance was highly significant, though non-additive variance also played some role in the inheritance of seed weight. The parent Bragg in general and the cross Bragg × Semmes in particular were observed to be good and should be exploited. Breeding procedure based on gene action has been suggested