Assessment of combining ability for various quantitative traits in summer urdbean

Line x tester analysis was carried out involving four lines and three testers in summer urdbean for assessing combining ability for grain yield and its component traits. The relative estimates of variance due to specific combining ability (sca) were higher than variance due to general combing ability (gca) for  plant height, number of pods per plant and grain yield per plant indicating the pre-dominance of non-additive gene action for these traits.  The parents Mash 391, Mash 1008 and Mash 218  were good general combiners for number of primary branches, number of pods per plant and grain yield per plant and hence can be used in urdbean  yield improvement programme through pedigree selection method. The hybrid combination;  KUG 391 x Mash 1008 recorded highly significant sca effects as well as high per se performance  for plant height, number of branches per plant, number of pods per plant and grain yield per plant suggesting that this cross could be further  exploited  to obtain  transgressive segregants in the breeding programme.