1Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, S.V. Agricultural College, Tirupati-517 502, Andhra Pradesh, India
2Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, IFT, Regional Agricultural Research Station, Tirupati-517 502, Andhra Pradesh, India
3Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, S.V. Agricultural College, Tirupati-517 502, Andhra Pradesh, India
4Department of Crop Physiology, IFT, Regional Agricultural Research Station, Tirupati-517 502, Andhra Pradesh, India
5Department of Plant Pathology, IFT, Regional Agricultural Research Station, Tirupati-517 502, Andhra Pradesh, India
*Corresponding Author: A. Kavitha Reddy, Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, S.V. Agricultural College, Tirupati-517 502, Andhra Pradesh, India, Email: appgari@gmail.com
Online published on 21 November, 2024.
As blackgram cultivation is majorly spread in rain fed areas, breeding short duration and high yielding blackgram varieties is of profound importance to tackle terminal moisture stress and reap impressive yields by breaking the yield plateau. Hence, the present study was aimed to identify highly heterotic cross combinations for yield and earliness.
Six parents along with 15 F1s were evaluated (rabi, 2019) for seed yield and its component traits along with earliness to estimate the magnitude of heterosis.
The cross LBG-752 × TBG-104 exhibited heterosis estimates in desirable direction for yield and earliness. The next best crosses were LBG-752 × PU-31, TU-40 × TBG-104, LBG-752 × TU-40 and IPU-2-43 × TBG-104. Because of its autogamous genetic architecture and biological constraints in large scale economic hybrid seed production, heterosis could be exploited only by isolating the early maturing and high yielding segregants followed by bi-parental or recurrent selection in early segregating generations and single plant selection in subsequent generations that would result in short duration and high yielding blackgram variety that fits well into different ecological niches.
Better parent heterosis, Blackgram, Earliness, Mid-parent heterosis, Seed yield, Yield components
