Studies on Combining Ability for Oil Content, Seed Yield and its Related Traits in Linseed

A half diallel analysis involving 10 parents and their 45 F1S for oil content, seed yield and its related traits in Linseed (Linum usitatissimum L.) was made to derive the information on general and specific combining ability effects. Significant differences were observed for both general combining ability (g.c.a.) and specific combing ability (s.c.a.) for all the traits studied. The high magnitude of g.c.a. and s.c.a. effects indicated the presence of both additive and non-additive gene inter actions for the maintenance of different characters. Parents Neelum, EC 42583 and NPhyb. 42 were observed to be good general combiners for plant height, no. of branches/plant, no. of seed/capsule, seed yield, 1000-seed weight and oil contentin both F1 and F2 generations. However on the basis of specific combining ability effects, out of 45 crosses only ten crosses namely (EC 41583 x Afg. 11, Neelum x NP hyb. 42, Afg 11 x B 67, EC 41583 x A.7-1-1, EC 22604 x NPhyb. 42 and EC 41583 x NP 78 for seed yield/plant).