Combining Ability, Genetic Diversity and Their Association with Heterosis for Seed Yield in Lentil (Lens culinaris Medikus)

In lentil, the information on relationship between combining ability, parental genetic diversity and heterosis is very scanty and need to be explored further.

The present investigation was carried out in randomized block design with three replications during rabi 2020–21 at GBPUAT, Pantnagar with 55 genotypes (10 parents and 4p5 F₁’s hybrids). The Griffing’s, Method II, Model I was used to estimate combining ability. The D² statistics was used to measure genetic diversity (GD). The Pearson’s correlation was used to measure correlation between heterosis and different parameters viz., parental mean (PM), specific combining ability (SCA), mean of general combining ability (MGCA) and genetic diversity (GD).

The hybrids viz., PL 8 × PL 4 (2.1 g), PL 8 × L 4147 (2.11 g), PL 8 × L 4076 (2.13 g), PL 8 × PL 406 (2.27 g), PL 8 × PL 5 (2.32 g) and PL 8 × PL 7 (2.52 g) were identified as most promising hybrids for seed yield while the parents PL 8 (2.14 g) and PL 7 (2.07 g) can be used as donors for high seed yield. The SCA were found to be the most reliable parameters to predict heterosis.