Study of Hetrosis in Sunflower (Helianthus Annuus L.)

Abstract

The present investigation entitled “Heterosis studies in sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) was undertaken to estimate the heterosis for seed yield and its components in sunflower. The 15 CMS lines and 5 restorer lines were crossed in line x tester model to produce 76 hybrids. The crosses were made at research area of Oilseed Section, Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, CCS HAU, Hisar during the spring season of 2014. Hybrids and parents were evaluated under four different environments i.e. Summer 2014, last week of August (E1) and First week of Sept. (E2) and during spring 2015, i.e. first week of February (E3) and last week of February (E4). Data on five randomly selected plants from each genotype in each replication were recorded on different quantitative characters viz. plant height (cm), head diameter (cm), stem diameter (cm) days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, hundred seed weight (g), seed yield per plant (g), oil content (%), hull content (%), percent seed filling, germination (%), electrical conductivity (µScm1 g-1), viability (%), vigour index I, vigour index II, palmitic acid (%), stearic acid (%), oleic acid (%) and linoleic acid (%) in all the test environments. Hybrids CMS 207 A x HRHA 5-3, CMS 852 A x RHA 271, CMS 207 A x RHA 297, CMS 234 A x 6D-1 and CMS 207 A x 6D-1 were found better and superior for heterosis , seed yield and its contributing trait and also for oil content. The hybrids with good heterotic value could be directly used for heterosis breeding because of their dominant nature. The use of genotypes in hybridization from these results is likely to produce more heterotic combination in future.