Combining abilily in egg plant

Diallel crosses involving six inbreads of egg plant (Solanum melongena L) revealed that, among the inbreds tested, CH-13 is a good general combiners for yield per plant; plant height, plant spread and fruit length. CH-4, CH-82 and CH-95 are good general combiners for dwarfing, earliness but poor combiners for yield per plant. The crosses CH-4 X CH-82 (1 X 5), CH-4 X CH-95 (1 X 6) and CH-13 X CH-82 (2 X 5) have recorded significantly high specific combining ability effects for yield per plant indicating the importance of both additive and non-additive effects for this character. It is inferred that these inbreds have high potentiality for yield improvement in egg plant. This suggests that these crosses are expected to give high yielding performance and produce desirable segregants in greater proportion for developing ideal plant ecotype with round purple fruits.