Genetic Analysis of Yield Components and Protein Content in Pea: The Anaysis of General and Specific Combining Ability

Combining ability of yield, its components and protein content was worked out from F1 and F2 generations of a diallel cross involving ten parents of pea. It showed significant additive and nonadditive genetic effects for all the characters, namely, days to flowering, plant height, branches per plant, pods per plants, seeds per pod, pod length, days to maturity, seed yield per plant, harvest index, and protein content in both F1 and f2 generations. Parents T 163,6113 and P 209 were good general combiners for yield, and EC 33866 and BR 12 for protein content. The highest mean performance and sea effects were recorded in the cross T I63×EC 33866 and BR 12×P 209 for yield and protein contents, respectively. The high performing cross combinations involving at least one good general combiner could be expected to produce transgressive segragants and thus need to be exploited in breeding programmes. For combining high seed yield with high protein content, multiple cross followed by further intermatings among desirable segregants has been proposed. The present analysis of a 10 × 10 diallel cross provides valuable genetic information for early assessment of parents for hybridization programmes and also for deciding efficient breeding procedure leading to rapid improvement in seed yield and protein content in pea.