Division of Genetics, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110 012.
* Present address: Department of Family Welfare, Govt. of Assam, Guwahati.
The generation means analysis of data of an intra-hirsutum cross Pusa 45-3-6 x Pusa 19–27 revealed presence of dominance and epistatic interactions in the genetic control of important yield components of boll number, boll weight, number of sympodia, number of monopodia, plant height and biological yield, while only additive gene action was significant for first fruiting node number. For harvest index, both additive and dominance effects were significant but epistasis was absent.
In F3 generation, mean-squares for “Between families variation” was significantly higher than mean-squares for “Within family variation” for all the traits except for harvest index. This suggested making of biparental matings between selected plants of different families complementing for yield components and postponing the selection to advance generations from such crosses for achieving significant genetic gain.
Gossypium hirsutum, generation means, gene action, narrow sense heritability
