The heritability & genetic advance were studied for pod yield and 7 other quantitative characters in hyacinth bean. The heritability estimates were relatively higher in F1 than F2 for as many as six characters. There was higher additive genetic variance in F1 which was much reduced in F2. High heritability alongwith high genetic advance was recorded for days to flowering, pod length and width and days taken from flowering to edible pod maturity. Moderate to low heritaqbility as well as genetic advance was observed for number of seeds/pod, number of pods/plant and number of pods/bunch. As high heritability with high to moderate genetic advance suggest that additive genetic variance is important while low heritability with low gentic advance suggest the preponderance of non-additive genetic variance. It is therefore, concluded that the desirable gains would be achieved in the early generation for the former traits where additive genetic variance was predominant while it would be effective for the latter traits in early generation where non-additive genetic variance was predominant.
