Abstract

                                Combining ability analysis involving eight lines and three testers was made in cowpea and studied for 12 characters. The variance due to gca and sca showed that the gene action was predominantly additive for plant height, pod length, number of seeds per pod, hundred seed weight, green pod weight, protein content in pod, crude fibre content in pod and vegetable yield per plant and non-additive for number of branches per plant, number of clusters per plant, number of pods per plant and grain yield per plant. The genotypes VCP 24, VCP 29, VCP 34, CO 2 and VBN 2 were found to be the good general combiners. The hybrids VCP 24 x CO 2, VCP 24 x VBN 2 and VCP 29 x CO 2 were observed to have more sca effects for vegetable yield.

Key words : Cowpea, gca effect, sca effect, GCA variance, SCA variance