1Central Potato Research Station, Ootacamund, 643 004, (TN).
2Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla, 171 005, (HP).
3Central Potato Research Institute, Shimla, 171 001, (HP).
Sixty cross populations developed in a line × tester mating design (12 × 5) were studied for combining ability variances and combining ability effects for eight characters. The variances due to general and specific combining ability showed that non-additive gene action is more important than additive gene action in the expression of the characters studied. When all characters of economic importance such as tuber yield, tuber number and average tuber weight were considered, the parents HB/82-36, JEX/C-166, AL-624 and Kufri Megha were good general combiners, thereby indicating that these parents were suitable for exploitation in TPS crop. There was no relationship between GCA of parents and SCA of crosses, indicating that high SCA effects can be realized regardless of parent GCA values.
