Combining Ability for Forage Attributes in Eu-Sorghum*

Combining ability was studied for forage yield and its components using the F₁ and F₂ of a 6 × 6 diallel set involving species of Eu-Sorghum. Significant general combining ability variance revealed the importance of additive genetic variance for almost all the eleven characters studied. S. roxburghii and S. virgatum were found to be good general combiners for most of the characters and thus, could be used effectively in a forage sorghum breeding programme. Array means appeared to be highly correlated with general combining ability effects, whereas per se performance of the F₁s was not found to be associated with specific combining ability effects. Reliable estimates of the general combining ability effects were also obtained by using the data of F₂ generation, whereas it was not so with regard to the specific combining ability effects.