Identification of parents and crosses for breeding improved pearl millet restorer Talukdar B. S.*, Babu P. P. Prakash International Crops Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh 502 324 * TRIGEN, ABC, IInd Floor, YMCA Complex, Secunderabad 500 003. Abstract A diallel analysis involving seven restorer lines of pearl millet [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br.] derived from the material of Indian and African origin. conducted using data from 21 F1 and 7 parents without reciprocal showed that mean squares due to general and specific combining abilities were highly significant. Interaction of general and specific combining abilities with environment was significant for all the traits, i.e., grain yield, time to 50% flower plant height, panicle length and panicle girth. General combining ability for grain yield of the pollinators ICMP 451 and ICMP 83401 was positive and consistent across test environments. Other pollinators had either negative general combining ability or nonsignificant general combining ability for grain yield. Specific combining abilities for grain yield of ICMP 451 x ICMP 501, ICMP 451 x ICMP 84122 and ICMP 501 x ICMP 83401 were high and significant across environments. In these three crosses one parent had high general combining ability for grain yield. The crosses ICMP 501 x ICMP 84122 and ICMP 84913 x ICMP 84122 had high specific combining ability effects for grain yield. In these two crosses both the parents had low general combining ability effects. These five crosses were significantly higher yielding over mean grain yield. However two crosses ICMP 451 x ICMP 501 and ICMP 501 x 84122 were considered superior to the other three based on their abilit} to produce higher frequency of good progenies. Top Keywords Pearl millet, restorers, gea, progeny testing, genetic variance. Top |