Heterosis Analysis for Fruityields in Papaya(Carica PapayaL.) Varieties

Abstract

The experiment was conductedat HRCof SV P U A& T, Meerutusing 10 inbred lines of papaya verities in a line x tester mating design. They are namely Pusa Delicious, Pusa Giant, Pusa Nanha, Pant Papaya 1 and Papaya P S 1, which were taken as female and each was crossed with five males namely Red Lady, Pusa Delicious, Surya, Pusa Majesty and Pink Fleshed Sweet and their 25 crosses was carried out with three replications, Thereby making a total plant population of 525 in a crop season. The extent of the inbred lines on the basis of heritability estimates and the extent of heterosis. There were fifteen characters taken during the experimental period. The analysis of high heritability was observed at flowering stage for plant height (98.9), fruit length (98.0), fruit weight (97.9), fruits per plant (94.2), fruit girth (94.0), fruit yield/plant (91.2), petiole length (90.6), plant height (89.1), central cavity (84.9), TSS (79.8), flower initiation (79.0), plant girth (77.2), flowering (75.5) while, low heritability were observed for number of leaves at flowering (73.2) and pulp thickness (71.9). The maximum significant and positive value in plant height at flowering stage was observed for cross Pusa Giant x Red Lady (113.58). For improvement in yield, emphasis may be given to the characters like central cavity, plant girth, fruit girth, plant height, pulp thickness, fruit weightand fruit length. So, among the crosses Pusa Giant x Pink Fleshed Sweet, Papaya P S 1 x Surya and Pant Papaya 1 x Red Lady were found promising for commercial cultivation.