Division of Vegetable Crops, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi-110012
Six genetic populations (two parents, one each F1 and F2 and two backcro-ses) of four crosses for maturity (days to first harvest) and of three crosses for fruit weight, were raised during 1975 at the division of Vegetable Crops, I. A.R.I., New Delhi. Generation means and gene effects were estimated. Dominance gene effects (h) and dominance × dominance (l) type of epistasis were found important for the expression of maturity (days to first harvest). Duplicate and complementary type of epistasis were exhibited in equal proportion. Dominance gene effects (h) and dominance × dominance (l) type of epistasis were also found to play an important role in the expression of fruit weight. Duplicate type of epistasis was more frequent than complementary type. It is indicated that the heterosis breeding may be useful in the crosses which exhibited duplicate epistasis alongwith pronounced gene effects. Whereas the crosses which showed pronounced additive gene effects alongwith complementary epistasis, suggested the possibility of fixing the particular chara-ter through selection methods.
