Studies on heterosis for fruit yield and quality attributing characters in in okra [Abelmoschus esculentus (L.) Moench]

Abstract

The present investigation was conducted on heterosis for fruit yield quality attributing characters in okra. Fifteen F1 hybrids were generated by half diallel (excluding reciprocals) mating design. These F1 hybrids along with six parents were evaluated in Randomized Block Design with three replications during late Rabi season of 2018 at three locations HRS, Lam; KVK, V.R.Gudem and KVK, Vonipenta, Andhra Pradesh. Observations were recorded for five randomly selected and tagged plants from each treatment for fruit yield and quality attributing characters viz., number of fruits per plant, fruit length (cm), fruit girth (cm), fruit weight (g), number of seeds per fruit, test weight (g/100), fruit yield per plant (g), fruit yield per hectare (t), fibre content (%), ascorbic acid content (mg/100g) and shelf life (days). The values of F1 hybrids averaged over three replications were used for estimating heterosis and pooled data was obtained. The top five heterotic cross combinations viz., 440-10-1 x HRB-9-2, VRO-6 x HRB-9-2, TCR-1674 x HRB-9-2, VRO-6 x JPM-20-16-39 and VRO-3 x HRB-9-2 were identified as stable with desirable heterosis for fruit yield and other important traits.