Abstract

An experiment was conducted to estimate the heterosis for yield and yield attributing traits in fingermillet. In the present investigation, a set of half diallel crosses involving seven parents were used for studying the extent of heterosis. The trial was conducted at Department of Millets, Centre for Plant Breeding and Genetics, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore. The parent CO (Ra) 14 was used as a standard check. The relative heterosis for grain yield ranged from 8.12 (RIL 156 x GPU 45) to 33.02 (CO 9 x CO (Ra) 14) per cent. The heterobeltiosis for grain yield was observed between -12.65 per cent (PRM 801 x CO (Ra) 14) to 24.29 (CO 9 x CO (Ra) 14) per cent and standard heterosis for grain yield recorded was -12.65 (PRM 801 x CO (Ra) 14) to 24.29 (CO 9 x CO (Ra) 14) per cent. Among the hybrids, TNAU 1039 x CO (Ra) 14 and CO 9 x CO (Ra) 14 were identified as superior hybrids as they recorded high magnitude of per se performance and standard heterosis for number of productive tillers per plant, fingers per ear head, 1000 grain weight, harvest index and single plant grain yield. These heterosis will be exploited through selection of superior and trait specific genotypes in the segregating generations for the evolution of high yielding varieties.

Keywords: per se performance, relative heterosis, heterobeltiosis, standard heterosis.