Gene action and combining ability studies in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.).

Twenty-one F1s, derived from 7 parental chickpea genotypes (NBeG-3, JG-11, ICCV 05106, MNK-1, ICCV 95333, KAK-2 and Vihar) and crossed in a diallel fashion (excluding reciprocals), were grown during rabi 2011-12 in Andhra Pradesh, India. Data were recorded on 7 characters, i.e. days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, plant height, number of branches per plant, number of pods per plant, seed yield per plant and 100-seed weight. Analysis of variance for combining ability revealed significant general combining ability (gca) and specific combining ability (sca) for all the characters studied, indicating the importance of both additive as well as non additive genetic components of variation in the expression of these attributes. However, variance components indicated that the magnitude of the non additive (sca) variance was considerably higher than additive (gca) variance for all the characters except plant height and 100-seed weight, indicating the preponderance of non additive genetic effects (dominance and epistasis) in controlling the expression of these characters. The crosses NBeG-3 × JG-11 for seed yield and number of branches, NBeG-3 × ICCV 05106, JG- 11 × ICCV 05106 and ICCV 05106 × Vihar for number of pods per plant and NBeG-3 × Vihar and JG-11 × KAK-2 for seed yield per plant exhibited significant sca effects coupled with high per se performance with good × good combiners. Due to additive × additive effects and their possibility of fixation, single plant selection could be practiced in segregating generations to isolate purelines from these crosses