1International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, PMB 5320, Ibadan, 200001, Nigeria
2International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, SARAH Campus, Lusaka, Zambia
3Life and Earth Sciences Institute, Pan African University, PMB 20, Ibadan, 200001, Nigeria
4Department of Plant Breeding and Seed Technology, Federal University of Agriculture, PMB 2240, Abeokuta, Nigeria
5Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar-125 004, Haryana, India
*Corresponding Authors: Godfree Chigeza and Subhash Chander, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, SARAH Campus, Lusaka, Zambia, g.chigeza@cgiar.org
**Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar-125 004, Haryana, India, Email: subhashthory@gmail.com
Online published on 18 March, 2021.
Crosses were made in line × tester mating design between a set of five IITA soybean released varieties and three plant introduced (PI) accessions obtained from World Vegetable Center, Taiwan. In order to produce sufficient seeds, F1 crosses were selfed, subsequently F2 populations along with their parents were planted in a randomized complete block design at two locations in Nigeria with three replications. Agronomic traits viz. days to flowering, days to poding, plant height, number of pods/plant and seed yield/plant were measured. Testers and lines showed significant differences for all the measured traits except days to flowering for testers. Considering the significance and magnitude of general combining ability (GCA) effect, line TGx 1988-5F was observed desirable for earliness, while line TGx 1989–19F was the best combiner for number of pods/plant and seed yield/plant. On the other hand, best tester for seed yield was PI 230970. Crosses TGx 1835–10E × PI 459025B and TGx 1987–62F × PI 459025B had significant and highest SCA effect for seed yield/plant. These two crosses appeared to be most promising for soybean yield improvement programme.
General combining ability, Line × Tester, Soybean, Specific combining ability