Genetic analysis of yield and yield components in field peas

Abstract

SummaryThe genetic parameters controlling the expression of seed yield and the yield components have been studied using both generation mean and triple test cross (TTC) analyses in two crosses of field pea. From generation mean analysis, it is obvious that in addition to significant estimates of additive and dominance components, epistatic components of mean [(i) and (I) types] were also important and duplicate type of epistasis was predominant for all the traits in both sets of crosses. In the TTC analysis, the major genetic component of variance was the additive component, though the dominance component was also found to be significant. There was evidence of epistasis for most of the characters studied. In fact, the overall epistasis (i type) was the major component of epistasis, but the parameter F was found in the non-significant range. The mean performance of the characters studied was higher in randomly-mated biparental progenies (BIPs) but there were more desirable transgressive segregants in the TTC population. Thus the genetic information obtained from both analyses seems to be complementary rather than alternative modes of inheritance in governing the expression of these useful economic traits.