Heterosis and Combining Ability For Earliness in Chickpea (Cicer Arietlnum L.) Salimath P.M.1, Bahl P.N.2 2Division of Genetics, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, 110 012 1IARI Centre for Improvement of Pulses in South, Ananda Nagar, Bangalore-560 024. Abstract In a set of crosses involving five tall types of which four were of Russian origin, as male parents and nine genotypes as females, heterosis and combining ability were studied for days to first flowering and days to maturity. While only two crosses showed significant better parent heterosis with respect to days to flowering, seven crosses showed significant better parent heterosis for days to maturity. Though both additive and non-additive variances were important for days to first flowering, the former was more predominant. For days to maturity, only non-additive variance was significant. Based on g.c.a. effects, BG 203, P 517 and P 10 among lines and NEC 249 among testers were indentified as good combiners for earliness. The implications of these results in deciding upon the breeding strategy for evloving early maturing types are discussed. Top Index words Cicer arietinum, chickpea, heterosis, combining ability, line × tester crosses. Top |