**Regional Coordinator (Germplasm Resources); South East Asia & Far East, FAO Buildings, Bangkok (Thailand).
Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Faculty of Agriculture Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, 221 005 (India)
*Part of Ph. D. thesis submitted by the senior author to Banaras Hindu Univevsity during 1979.
Diallel (F1 and F2) crosses involving ten diverse cultivators of pea (Pisum sativum L.) were analysed for combining ability for seed number and seed weight: Additive inheritance was important in determining the seed number and seed weight in pea. The per se performance of parents was in good agreement with their GCA effects. Cultivars GC 141 and GC 322 for seed number and P 206 followed by S. for seed weight were the best general combiners. The best cross would be the one which involved one good and one poor parent.
