International Journal of Horticulture, 2016, Vol.6, No.24, 1-7
1
Research Report Open Access
Studies on Gene Action and Combining Ability of Cytoplasmic-Genic Male
Sterility System based Hybrids in Pigeonpea [
Cajanus Cajan
(L.) Millsp.]
Soni Neetu
1
, Patel P.T.
2
1 M.Sc., Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, C.P. College of Agriculture, Sardarkrushinagar Dantiwada Agricultural University, Sardarkrushinagar,
385 506. Dist. Banaskantha, Gujarat state, India
2 Associate Research Scientist (Plant Breeding), Spices Research Station, Sardarkrushinagar Dantiwada Agricultural University, Jagudan 382 710 Dist,
Mehsana, Gujarat state, India
Corresponding email
International Journal of Horticulture 2016, Vol.6, No.24 doi
Received: 13 Oct., 2016
Accepted: 30 Nov., 2016
Published: 10 Dec., 2016
Copyright
© 2016 Soni and Patel, This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article
:
Soni N., and Patel P.T., 2016, Studies on gene action and combining ability of cytoplasmic-genic male sterility system based hybrids in pigeonpea [
Cajanus
Cajan
(L.) Millsp.], International Journal of Horticulture, 6(24): 1-7 (doi
Abstract
The present investigation was undertaken with different newly developed six cytoplasmic male sterile (A) lines and five
pollen fertility restorers (R) lines as testers were crossed in a line x tester mating design for ascertaining their general and specific
combining ability for yield and its component traits in pigeonpea [
Cajanus Cajan
(L.) Millspaugh]. The mean sum of squares due to
line x testers interaction were significant for all the characters except plant height, revealed the significant contribution of hybrids for
specific combining ability variance components. The ratio of σ
2
gca/ σ
2
sca being more than unity was found for the traits, days to
flowering, days to maturity, plant height and biological yield, which indicated greater role of additive genetic variance for the
inheritance for these traits suggesting and indicated to further improvement as a source of favourable genes for earliness and yield
improvement through selection of desired transgressive segregants from segregating generation. The ratio σ
2
gca/ σ
2
sca being less
than unity was found for the traits, number of branches per plant, number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod, pod length,
100-seed weight, seed yield per plant, harvest index, protein content and leaf area, which exhibited greater role of non- additive
genetic variance for the inheritance for these traits and indicated to exploitation of these traits for improvement of yield through
heterosis breeding. Among parents, CMS GT 603 A (28.43) and GTR 95 (17.24) were good general combiner for seed yield and its
contributing traits
viz
. pod length, number of branches per plant, number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod, pod length,
biological yield and leaf area, CMS GT 33 A (0.48) and CMS GT 301 A (0.19) for protein content, CMS GT 33 A (-17.93), CMS GT
288 A (-9.03), GTR 52 (-1.40) and GTR 8 (-0.62) recorded for earliness. These parents can be improved further through intensive
crossing programme and subsequent selection of transgressive segregants in desired direction. Hybrids CMS GT 33 A X GTR 18
(29.31), CMS GT 302 A X GTR 8 (25.27), CMS GT 601 A X GTR 52 (21.35) and CMS GT 288 A X GTR 95 (20.89) were the best
for seed yield per plant. These crosses had also high sca values for its contributing traits
viz
. number of branches per plant, number of
pods per plant, pod length, harvest index, biological yield and leaf area. These crosses involved poor x average, poor x poor and
average x poor combining parents and better performance reflected involvement of interaction of dominant and epistasis type gene
action for this trait. So, these crosses can be exploited through hybrid breeding programme.
Keywords
Combining ability; Pigeon pea
Introduction
Pigeonpea (
Cajanus cajan
(L.) Millsp.), (2n=2x=22) member of family
Fabaceae
is an important pulse crop of
India. The development of hybrid pigeonpea using cytoplasmic genetic male sterility is very much required to
break the yield platue of this crop. Exploitable hybrid vigour requires availability of cytoplasmic nuclear male
sterility and fertility restoration system and sound seed production techniques are the pre-requisites for the success
of any hybrid breeding programme. Fertility restorers were identified for cytoplasmic male sterile lines (Chauhan
et al., 2004), Characterized (Acharya et al., 2005) and combining ability and hybrid vigor studied for grain yield
and it’s contributing traits by using cms lines and pollen fertility restorer lines (Patel and Tikka 2014a and 2014b).
Combining ability analysis was, therefore, carried out in present investigation to obtain information on
gca
effects
of parents (lines and testers) and
sca
effects of crosses which would help in selection of better parents and cross
combinations for their future use in hybrid breeding programme. This will also provide the information regarding
