Combining ability for yield and components in late summer brinjal¹

Combining ability analysis of a 10 × 10 diallel, excluding reciprocals was undertaken for fruit yield per plant and its component characters in round brinjal. Non-additive gene action was noticed to be pre-ponderant for fruit yield per plant and the yield component characters studied. A perusal of the gca effects revealed KS 224, PLR 1, Morvi 4–2 and JBPR 1 to be good general combiners for fruit yield per plant. These parents had also recorded high per se performance for the trait, indicating their suitability in breeding programmes for development of high yielding hybrids. Among the hybrids, 22 crosses had exhibited significant and desirable sca effects for fruit yield per plant. Of these, nine crosses had recorded desirable sca effects in addition to significantly high per se performance, compared to hybrid mean for the trait. An analysis of these crosses revealed the involvement of a good and a poor general combiner parent for majority (66.7%) of the crosses and both good parents (33.3%) in few crosses. The hybrid, KS 224 × PLR 1, involving both good combiner parents for fruit yield per plant, had recorded maximum fruit yield, in addition to desirable sca effects for fruit yield and several other component characters. Hence, it is identified as a potential hybrid for commercial exploitation during late summer season.