Abstract

Eleven rice genotypes were selected to produce 33 F1 partial diallel crosses. They were evaluated over two years in Compact Family Randomized Block Design for the characters namely, plant height, number of effective tillers, number of grains per panicle, test weight, grain yield per plant, days to maturity, alkali digestion value, and volume expansion. Combining ability effects and variances were estimated following partial diallel mating analysis. Parents, namely IET 1443 and NDR 118 were good general combiners for dwarfness and earliness. For days to maturity (2002), test weight and volume expansion, parent Sashyashree exhibited desirable gca effects. Parent NDR 359 was best general combiner for grain yield and number of effective tillers per plant. In general, non-additive genetic variance was larger than the additive for most of the characters studied except number of grains per panicle and test weight. Most of the traits exhibited over dominance. Partial dominance was exhibited by number of grains per panicle whereas water uptake number exhibited complete dominance

Keywords: Rice, partial diallel, combining ability, nature of dominance