U. P. Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Kanpur-2.
**Present address: Geneticist, Division of Genetics, I.A.R.I., New Delhi-12.
*Part of the thesis submitted to Kanpur University, Kanpur by the second author for the award of the M. Sc. (Ag.) degree in Botany.
Six genetic populations (two parents, one each F1 and F2 and two back-crosses; of a cross were raised during 1970 at U. P. Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Kanpur. Gene effects, heterosis and inbreeding depression were estimated. Positive heterosis was recorded for plant height, days to flower, internode length, fruit thickness, number of fruits per plant and yield per plant. Inbreeding depression was observed in four characters. On the other hand, respect of number of nodes and fruit length F2 was found superior to F1. Dominance gene effects (h) and additive x additive (i) and additive x dominance (j) types of epistasis were found important in the expression of the characters. Duplicate type of epistasis was found more prominent than complementary one. It was suggested that search for varieties or cultures exhibiting better general combining ability should be made for entering them into the hybridisation programme.
