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Heterosis and inbreeding depression in pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan L.)

2002; Society for Recent Development in Agriculture; Volume: 2; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

0976-4615

B. S. Kumar, Rajendra Kumar, Ram Krishna,

Genetics and Plant Breeding

Pigeonpea or arhar [Cajanus cajan (L.) Mill sp. 2n =22] is an important pulse crop next to chickpea in India. The experiment was conducted to estimate the heterosis over superior and economic parents in F1 hybrids and inbreeding depression in F2 progenie. The experiment comprised of 19 parents (16 lines and 3 testers), their 48 F1s and 48F2s, which were grown in randomized complete block design with three reptications. The observations were recorded for thirteen traits namely, days to initial flowering, plant height, number of primary branches per plant, number of clusters per plant, number of pods per cluster, number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod, pod length, days to maturity, 100-seed weight, seed density, grain yield per plant and protein content. The data gathered were subjected to ‘line x tester’ analysis (1) and various other biometrical analysis. In general, constderable heterosis over superior-and economic parent (T -7) was observed for all the characters. Only eight crosses showed heterosis over superior and economic parents tn Etesirable direction for grain yield per plant. The maximum economic heterosis was shown by the cross KA 1 x KA 32-1 followed by K35 x banda palera, KA 1 x Banda Palera, KA 26-8 x Banda Palera, KA 26-8 x KA 32-1 and T-7 x Banda palera. Allthese crosses also showed desirable heterosis over their. respective sperior parents. These crosses also exhibited significant heterosis for more than one yield contributing components. Inbreeding depression variable magnitude in F2 proenies was observed for all the 13 characters under study, For grain yield per plant, higher inbreeding depression was shown by the cross K 35 x banda palera follwed by KA 1 x KA 32-1, KA 26-8 x Banda palera and KA 108 x KA 32-1. Thus, these crosses may be exploited profitably through heterosis breeding programme.