HETEROTIC RESPONSES IN YIELD COMPONENT TRAITS IN FABABEAN (VICIA FABA L.)
S. K. BISHNOI, J. S. HOODA AND PREETI SHARMA
Department of Genetics & Plant Breeding
CCS Haryana Agricultural University,
Hisar-125 004 (Haryana), India
(e-mail : skbishnoi.ars@gmail.com)
(Received : 10 October 2015; Accepted : 30 November 2015)
SUMMARY
The present investigation was carried out during the year 2013-14 at CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar with the objective to estimate heterotic responses in yield component traits in 48 hybrid combinations constituted by 16 fababean genotypes of diverse origins across the world. The experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design with three replications and observations were made on 10 randomly selected plants for 10 yield component traits. Significant positive as well as negative heterosis was observed for plant height, number of branches per plant, number of pods per plant, number of pod clusters per plant, pod length, seeds per pod, 100-seed weight and seed yield per plant. However, only negative significant heterosis was observed for number of days to 50 per cent flowering and number of days to maturity. The mean performance of the parents and their respective crosses has also been presented in the paper along with per cent heterosis for individual cross. Character-wise better performing and poor performing crosses have also been given. The present study is supposed to help select parents to produce overall better performing and thus better yielding hybrid combinations. Moreover, further evaluation of the better performing crosses in the present study may help improve yield in fababean along with an insight to help understand the way heterotic combinations behave in this crop.
Key words:Vicia faba, fababean, heterosis, yield component traits