1Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, RAU, S. K. N. College of Agriculture, Jobner, Jaipur 303 329.
2All India Coordinated Wheat & Barley Improvement Project, RAU, Agril. Res. Stn., Durgapura, Jaipur 302 018.
Genetic analysis was undertaken in 10 x 10 half parental diallel progenies (F1 and F2) for yield and its associated traits under three varying environmental conditions In barley (Hordeum vulgare L.). Genotype x Environment interaction was found significant for all the characters in both F1 and F2 generations. Environment wise analysis of variance exhibited that the gea and sca were significant for all the characters indicating involvement of both additive and non-additive gene effects, with non-additive gene effect being predominant. The interaction between gea x environment and sca x environment were found significant for almost all the characters reflecting susceptibility of gca and sca effects of characters with the environments. The parents RD 2052, RD 2503 and RD 2508 were the best general combiners for grain yield and also high to average general combiners for most of the important traits. The best stable cross over environments was RD 2503 x RD 2585. Environment wise best crosses for grain yield per plant were RD 2035 x RD 2052 for early sowing (E l); RD 2052 x BL 2 for normal sowing (E2) and RD 2035 x BL 2 for late sowing (E3). The best crosses generally involved at least one of the parents with desirable gea effects. Hence, these crosses could be utilized extensively in future breeding programmes.
Six-rowed barley, combining ability, gene effects, quantitative traits, grain yield
