Combining ability in blackgram

Abstract

The experimental materials comprised of diallel set excluding reciprocals of 7 divergent varieties, viz. NP14, WB16, T9, BR68, LU9, LU487 and LBG623. The 21 F1s and seven parents were planted in randomized block design with three replications in three different environments. The experiments were sown in March 1995, October 1995, and March 1996. Each plot consisted of a single row of 5m length with the spacing of 40 cm between rows and 15 cm between plants within the row. Observations were recorded on ten randomly selected plants for plant height (cm.), number of primary branches/plant, number of pods/plant, number of seeds/plant, 100-seed weight (gm.) and seed yield/plant (gm.). The experimental data were analyzed following Singh [1-2] using Method 2, Model 1 of Griffing [3]. The relative importance of GCA and SCA was calculated as suggested by Baker [4].