Gene effects for oil content and other quantitative traits in soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merrill]

Six parental lines i.e., four cultivars and two promising lines of soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merrill] were crossed in four combinations to develop F₁, F₂ and F₃ hybrid progenies. Five generations viz., P₁, P₂, F₁, F₂ and F₃ were grown in an experiment under compact family block design to estimate the gene effects for oil content and other quantitative traits. Additive and dominance gene effects were important in determining inheritance of seed oil content in all the four crosses. Complementary epistasis was important for oil content in ‘MACS 684’ x ‘RSC 1’ and in ‘PK 472’ x ‘RSC 2’. Additive gene effects also determined inheritance of, days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, plant height, clusters/plant, biomass and harvest index. Dominance gene action was critical in determining the yield and oil content. Duplicate epistasis were significantly important in inheritance of plant height, no. of branches per plant, clusters per plant, pods/plant, no. of seeds per plant, plant biomass, 100 seed weight and yield per plant.