COMBINING ABILITY ANALYSIS FOR ROOT WEIGHT AND SHOOT WEIGHT IN OLITORIUS JUTE

Abstract

Ina seven-parentdiallel cross of Corchorus olitorius, the nature of inheritance of dry weight of roots and shoots was studied after 15, 30 and 45 days of crop growth. Varieties Russian Red and Peking are recommended as parents for future hybridization due to their high general combining ability effects. Amongthe crosses with good specific combining ability effects, Sudan Green xRussian Red, JRO·7835 xRussian Red and Russian Red x Peking are expected to yield rare transgressive segregants, which may be useful in breeding for drought tolerance. Population improvement through diallel selective mating or mass selection with concurrent random mating should be followed to exploit both additive and nonadditive gene actions for these two characters.