Abstract

Seven cytoplasmic male sterile lines were crossed with six restorers in line x tester fashion to estimate the heterosis for seed yield and its component traits in sunflower. The result revealed that seed yield and its components showed highly significant differences for all the traits. The extent of heterosis in 42 hybrids over better parent (BP) ranged from 6.15 to 317.28% for seed yield and from -11.42 to 10.18% for oil content. The superiority of hybrids over standard check (PAC-1091) ranged from -58.41 to 24.63% and from -5.92 to 14.88% for seed yield and oil content respectively. The hybrids CMS 234A x RHA-6D-1R, CMS 852A x RHA-6D-1R and ARM 243A x 3376R were the best for seed yield, oil content and yield characters.These hybrids may be exploited for heterosis breeding and need to be screened for yield stability.

Keywords: Sunflower, heterosis, yield components.