Abstract

The experimental material comprised 45 F1’s generated by crossing ten diverse lines of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) in a half diallel fashion and their parents were evaluated in RBD in two replications at three locations during Kharif, 2008. The pooled analysis revealed that both gca and sca were influenced by environments, which suggested that studies are being conducted over the environments to get unbiased estimates. The sca x e interaction was greater than gca x e interaction for most of the traits. The compassion of relative magnitude of gca and sca variances indicated greater magnitude of sca variances for all the traits, indicating greater importance of non additive gene action for the inheritance of these traits. SKUA-R-607 and SKUA-R-608 showed high combining ability for seed yield and yield attributing traits. The most promising crosses, in order of merit for seed yield, were Shalimar rajmash 1 x SKUA-R-607, SKUA-R-608 x SKUA-R-106 and Shalimar rajmash -1 x SKUA- R-612.

Key words: Common bean, diallel, combining ability over environments, gene action.