COMBINING ABILITY ANALYSIS FOR YIELD AND YIELD TRAITS USING 'WA' CYTOPLASM IN RICE ( ORYZA SATIVA L.)

Combining ability analysis for yield and yield traits was carried out in rice (Oryza sativa L.) through line × tester analysis during the wet season of 2011 involving three Cytoplasmic Male Sterile (CMS) lines used as lines, 10 male genotypes as testers and their 30 F 1 hybrids (generated in Kharif 2010) along with two checks (BPT5204 and PHB71). All the materials were grown in Kharif 2011 in a randomized block design with three replications under recommended cultural practices and were evaluated for yield and yield traits. Only 15 F1 hybrids (full fertile common hybrids) were taken for analysis of combining ability. The analysis of variance for combining ability revealed that the variation among lines were only for grain weight / panicle; whereas, contribution of testers towards combining ability was significant in respects of majority of the traits. Among the female parental lines, IR68897B was found to be good general combiner for number of spikelets per panicle. Among the male parental lines, BPT 5204 was found to be the best parental line based on per se performance and gca effects for most of the traits. The present finding revealed that cross combinations IR58025 × GR-32, IR58025A × MTU-7029 and Pusa6A × Type-3 exhibited high sca effects for grain yield/plant. None of the cross combinations showed high sca effect for all the characters.