Combining ability of important economic traits in broiler japanese quail under tropical environment

A 4X4 complete diallel cross was conducted involving four broiler lines of Japanese quail viz. Meat type quail (MTQ), German line quail (GLQ), Synthetic line quail (SLQ) and Korean line quail (KLQ) subjected to long term mass selection for 5^th week body weight and other economic traits. The traits measured were body weight, breast angle, shank length and keel length available on 640 progenies from two hatches. There was significant difference between genetic groups for all the traits studied. Combining ability analysis revealed significant general combining ability (GCA) variance for all the traits. Specific combining ability (SCA) was also significant except for keel length. Reciprocal effects (RE) were highly significant for body weight and breast angle. The values of GCA, SCA and RE for 5th week's body weight ranged from -9.99 to 4.72, -1.22 to 4.68 and -3.66 to 4.91 respectively.