Genetic Analysis for Biochemical and Yield Attributes in Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus L. Moench)

The components of gene effects for biochemical and its yield components in okra were studied using generation mean analysis from six generations (P₁, P₂, F₁, F₂, BC₁, and BC₂) derived from six different genotypes. Joint scaling test was applied to detect the presence of epistasis. Epistasis was detected in both the cases. Prevalence of duplicate type of epistasis was observed in all the cases except number of fruits/plant and fruit yield in C₁ (IC 3307 x IC 433645), chlorophyll-b and total chlorophyll in C₂ (IC-43736 x Parbhani Kranti) and chlorophyll-a, chlorophyll-b, total chlorophyll and crude protein in C₃ (IC-342075 XIC-332453). Additive, dominance and epistatic gene effects contribute significantly to the inheritance of various biochemical andyield charactersstudied. The joint scaling test confirmed the inadequacy of the additive dominance model in most of the crosses for many of the characters and indicated the presence of epistasis. Low narrow sense heritability values for most of the characters indicating that these characters are more influenced by the environment and they cannot be improved by simple selection.