Heterosis and Combining Ability Studies for Economic Traits in Genetically Diverse Lines of Garden Pea (Pisum Sativum L.) Singh Harinder, Singh Mohan, Brar P.S. Department of Vegetable Crops, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana-141004, Punjab, India Abstract Eighteen parent (15 lines and 3 testers) line x tester analysis revealed that both gca and sca variances were highly significant for all the characters, which indicated that both additive and non-additive gene effects are important for the inheritance of different characters studied. None of the parents exhibited good gca for all the characters studied. Among the females, Early Snap, NDVP-9 and VP-8902 proved to be good combiners for days to flowering, green pod yield and other important traits. Male parents JP-179 and Matar Ageta-6 (MA-6) were found to be good combiners for most of the characters studied. A large number of hybrids exhibited significant specific combining ability effects for yield and yield related characters. From the present set of crosses. Mithi Phali x MA-6 was found to be best specific combiner for yield and yield related characters and identified for obtaining high yielding true breeding lines. Expression of heterobeltiosis was found to be high for most of the characters except for days to flowering. The best heterotic combinations were NDVP-9 x JP179, VP7906 x Arkel, Mithi Phali x MA-6, NDVP-8 x JP 179 and Mithi Phali x JP 179 for green pod yield, number of branches, number of pods per plant, plant height and days to marketable maturity, respectively. Top Index Words Combining ability, garden pea, heterobeltiosis. Top |