Abstract

Heterosis and combining ability analysis were studied in a 7 × 7 diallel set of bread wheat. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed the presence of significant variance due to general combining ability (GCA) among the parents for all the traits, and due to specific combining ability (SCA) among the crosses for the all the traits except for number of tillers per plant, plant height and number of spikelets per spike. Combining ability analysis revealed the involvement of both additive and non additive gene action in the inheritance of most of the traits. On the basis of GCA, SCA effects and per se performance, parents K 9107 for 6 traits, K 9162 for 4 traits and GW 373 for 3 traits and crosses K 9107 × K 7903 for 2 traits, K 68 × K 7903 for 2 traits were found good general and specific combiners, respectively. Significant heterosis over economic parent and mid parent was observed for almost all the traits studied. The magnitude of heterosis was highest (21.74%) for number of spikelets per spike over economic parent and for number of tillers per plant (13.73%) over mid parent.

Key words: Wheat, heterosis, combining ability, diallel.