Heterosis for yield and yield contributing characters in cowpea genotypes
Abstract
Fifteen F1 hybrids obtained by crossing 6 diverse parental lines of cowpea through diallel excluding reciprocals method was studied to investigate the extent of heterosis for yield and yield contributing characters during kharif, 2007 and spring-summer, 2008 season. Among the various components pods per plant and seeds per pods are important factor contributing to yield. IT-97K-1042 and IT-93K-452 were observed to be the top performing parents for total seed yield per plant. The crosses IT-97K-1042 XIT-98K-1111 and IT-97K-1042 X Pusa Komal were best heterotic crosses for seed yield and other characters.
