Line × tester analysis in lathyrus

Twenty one F1 crosses obtained by crossing three testers and seven lines in a line × tester fashion were used to study the general and specific combining ability of parents and crosses, respectively and to select good combiner parents and crosses for studying them in the next generation. These crosses were grown in randomized complete block design replicated thrice and observations on days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, plant height, maturity period, number of primary branches/plant, number of pods/plant, number of seeds/pod, 100-seed weight and yield/plant were recorded. Both GCA and SCA effects were found important for most of the characters studied. The parent ‘NLK-5’, ‘BioR-231’ and ‘Ratan’ were identified as good general combiner for yield and yield contributing characters. The crosses ‘NLK-5’ × ‘Ratan’ and ‘BioR-231’ × ‘Ratan’ involved good general combiners and recorded significant negative SCA effects and non-significant SCA effects, respectively. Due to the presence of additive gene effect in these crosses, genotypes with inherent superiority could be produced from these crosses through recombination and fixation of maximum favourable genes.