Combining ability and heritability estimates of main agronomic characters in rapeseed breeding lines using line × tester analysis

To estimate the general and specific combining ability (GCA and SCA) effects of plant height, yield components, seed yield and oil content, three testers and six lines of spring type of rapeseed varieties were crossed using line ? tester fashion. Significant mean squares of parents and crosses for all the traits indicated significant genetic variation among the parents and their F1 crosses. Significant mean squares of parents vs crosses revealed significant average heterosis for all the traits except seeds per pod, 1000-seed weight and oil content. High narrow-sense heritability estimates for all the traits except seeds per pod, indicating the importance of additive genetic effects for these traits. Due to more importance of additive genetic effects for most of the traits, only a few of the crosses exhibited significant SCA effects. A significant positive correlation between seed yield and some of yield components including pods on main axis, pods per plant and 1000-seed weight indicates that these traits can be used as suitable selection criteria for improving of seed yield. The crosses including Opt ? R01, RG06 ? R01, RG06 ? R08 and RGS3 ? R08 with 3241.91, 3213.68, 3334.28 and 3237.45 kg ha-1 of seed yield detected as prior combinations for improving of this trait and all of these combinations had also positive SCA effect for this trait.