Abstract

Comparison of parents, single crosses and three-way crosses in groundnut revealed that high level of heterotic effects were observed in single crosses for the traits: number of branches, number of mature pods and pod yield. The three-way crosses exhibited heterotic effects for shelling out turn, pod weight and kernel weight. Hence for the improvement of these traits three-way crosses may yield better results than single crosses. The range of mean values was narrow in three-way crosses for four of six traits studied, which suggests that the three-way crosses have more buffering capacity than single crosses.

Keywords: Groundnut, single cross, three-way cross, heterosis