Abstract
The nature and magnitude of genetic variance for yield and its component traits were studied in Indian bean using diallel analysis. The estimates of general combining ability (GCA) variance were much higher than specific combining ability (SCA) variance except days to 50% flowering, number of pod per cluster and fiber content; this indicated the importance of both additive as well as non-additive gene effects are involved in the expression of these characters. Genotypes NIB-69 and NIB-54 were identified as good general combiner for pod yield per plant. The cross combination viz., NIB-57 x NIB-69, NIB-69 x NIB-80, NIB-32 x NIB-54, NIB-41 x NIB-69 and NIB-23 x NIB-54 were the most promising crosses for improvement of pod yield. In the light of present study, the use of good general combining parents in the hybridization programme, selection of the desirable segregants from the segregating generations by adopting progeny selection method for exploiting additive genetic variance would lead to rapid improvement in this crop. Key words: Genetic variance, diallel analysis, Indian bean.
Highlights
Indian bean (Lablab purpureus L.) is an important pulse crop of Gujarat
The estimates of general combining ability (GCA) variance were much higher than specific combining ability (SCA) variance except days to 50% flowering, number of pod per cluster and fiber content; this indicated the importance of both additive as well as non-additive gene effects are involved in the expression of these characters
Variance for specific combining ability was highly significant for all the characters except fiber content
Summary
Indian bean (Lablab purpureus L.) is an important pulse crop of Gujarat. There are two cultivated types of Indian bean viz., typicus and lignosus (Shivashankar et al, 1971). Lignosus is known as field bean and mainly cultivated for dry seed as pulse and is more popularly recognized as ‘Wal’, ‘Wal–papdi’ or ‘Valor’ in Gujarat state. The fodder has good palatability and the cattles are nourished well It can be used as nitrogen fixing pulse crop. Combining ability studies reveal the nature of gene action and lead to identification of parents with high general combining ability effect and the cross combination with high specific combining ability effects. This in turn helps in choosing the parents to be included hybridization or population breeding programme. Among the different biometrical methods employed to study combining is the one proposed by Griffing’s (1956)
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