Study of combining ability for yield contributing traits in brinjal (Solanum melongena L.)

The combining ability analysis of 8×8 half diallel set of crosses in brinjal was undertaken for fruit yield and its attributing characters. Eight parents, twenty eight hybrids and two standard checks were evaluated during late kharif/rabi 2018-19 for the present study in randomized block design for two replications. The analysis of variance revealed presence of considerable variability among genotypes for all the characters under study. Combining ability analysis revealed important of both additive and non additive variances in expression of various traits. Among the parental genotypes, parent SBJH-631 and Sep-034 were good general combiners for fruit length, fruit cluster per plant, number of fruits per plant, fruit yield, number of leaves per plant, shoot borer infestation and fruit borer infestation. Followed by Utkal Keshari and IBH-2 for days to 50% flowering, fruit weight, fruit diameter, fruit cluster per plant, number of fruits per cluster and fruit borer infestation. In respect to estimates of specific combining ability effects, cross IBH-2 x SBJH-631 was good for number of branches per plant, number of fruits per plant, number of fruits per cluster and fruit yield and SBJH-631 x Sep-034 was shown best specific combining ability for number of leaves per plant, number of flowers per plant, number of fruits per plant, total yield and fruit borer infestation characters. The additive gene components were observed to be predominant for all characters except number of branches per plant, number of leaves per plant and shoot borer infestation.