Gene action for morphological, anatomical and biochemical traits in inter-specific crosses of cotton

The generation mean analysis of data of inter-specific crosses viz., G. arboreum var. Y-1 x G. anomalum (Cross I) and G. arboreum var. G-27 x G. capitis viridis (Cross II) revealed that both additive and dominance gene actions were found significant for all the characters under study except dominance gene action for chlorophyll-a in cross I and stomata breadth in cross II was found non-significant. Duplicate epistasis was observed for all the characters in cross I except for upper palisade layer length, number of cells in upper palisade, chlorophyll-a₁, b₁ content and total sugar content where complementary epistasis was observed. Whereas in cross II the duplicate epistasis was observed for all the characters except for lower palisade layer length, distance between phloem, stomata breadth and total sugar content. Presence of both fixable and non-fixable genetic components as well as duplicate type of epistasis observed for different characters, which indicated accumulation of favorable genes for the characters, it is worth to intermate and select desired characters from segregating generations, which would yield better results.