Abstract

The investigation was undertaken in sweet corn to carry out the combining ability analysis of yield and yield contributing characters. Eight divergent parents were selected and crossed in diallel fashion excluding reciprocals during kharif, 2010. The resulting 28 crosses along with parents and a standard check Sugar 75 and Madhuri were evaluated. The data were collected on plant height, ear height, ear length, ear girth, number of kernel rows per ear, number of kernels per row, green cob yield, 100 kernel (dry) weight and seed yield (wet) per plant. The combining ability analysis revealed importance of both additive and non-additive gene actions in governing the characters but non-additive gene action was found predominant. The parental lines 6100, 6100-2 and 6104 contributed maximum favourable genes for characters under study. Considering all the characters, the parental lines 6100, 6100-2 and 6122-1 can be considered as good general combiners. The hybrid combinations, 6104 x 6100, 6127 x 6100 and 6122-1 x 6100-2 performed well for seed yield (wet) per plant and yield contributing characters which may be used as single cross hybrids.

Keywords: Sweet corn, General combining ability, Madhuri, Specific combining ability, Sugar75.