Department of Vegetable Science, PAU, Ludhiana-141004, Punjab
*Corresponding author, Email: rajinder@pau.edu
Online published on 4 September, 2020.
Ten lines and four testers were crossed in line x tester fashion during 2018 and evaluated in 2019 to assess the heterotic potential of 40 hybrids of watermelon hybrid for various morphological and quality traits. Significant mean squares due to lines, testers, hybrids, line x tester and parents x hybrids were observed for most of the traits. The results indicated that significant negative heterosis for earliness was shown by EC829875 x Sugar Baby. Similarly, heterosis for number of fruits, total yield, lycopene and TSS were seen in WM-53 x Sugar Baby, EC 829875 x Arka Manik, WM-14 x EC-829827 and EC 829823 x Sugar baby respectively. The present investigation revealed that hybrids WM-14 x EC-829852, EC829870 x EC829827, KFF-1-1-2 x Arka Manik, and WM-14 x Sugar Baby had good heterotic potential for TSS, less seed number and total yield which can be exploited for their commercial values.
Water melon, Heterosis, Combining ability, TSS and lycopene
