Expression of Heterosis for Productive Traits in F1 Brinjal (Solanum melongena L.) Hybrids

The study was carried out to estimate magnitude of heterosis over better parent and standard check for some important characters in 15 crosses resulting from a half diallel mating design of 6 inbred lines of brinjal. Hybrid variety 'Tarapuri' was used as standard check. The parents and the hybrids were evaluated at the farm of Olericulture Division, HRC, BARI, during the winter season of 2008-2009. A randomized complete block design with three replications was used. Significant levels of heterosis were detected for all the traits studied. Promising hybrids exhibited significant positive heterosis for fruit yield, magnitude of which ranged from 9.63% to 74.89% and 8.52% to 72.60% over better parent and standard check, respectively. Some of the promising hybrids showed desirable heterosis for earliness, increased fruit number and yield. Keywords: Heterosis; productive traits; brinjal; hybrid. DOI: 10.3329/agric.v8i2.7571 The Agriculturists 8(2): 8-13 (2010)