Heterosis, inbreeding depression and components of heterosis in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) under irrigated and rainfed conditions
Abstract
The present study was carried out to estimate degree of heterosis, inbreeding depression and components of heterosis (in terms of gene effects) for eleven traits in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) through generation mean analysis under irrigated and rainfed conditions. Five generations (P1, P2, F1, F2 and F3) derived from five crosses of chickpea were evaluated in Compact Family Block Design with three replications under both the conditions. Significant differences were observed among the crosses, generations and environments for all the characters. The magnitude of heterosis and heterobeltiosis varied from -7.31 % to 46.39 % and from -13.20 % to 32.49 %, respectively between different crosses across both the conditions. In all the crosses, significant heterobeltiosis was observed in all the crosses for all the characters except for fruiting branches per plant under rainfed condition. All the crosses also revealed inbreeding depression for most of the characters, which is varied from -17.94 % to 18.42 % across both the conditions. The components of heterosis study revealed that the manifestation of heterosis was mainly due to dominance x dominance (l) followed by dominance (h) and additive x additive (i) components in most of the crosses for most of the characters under both the conditions, indicating role of non-additive gene action. The opposite signs of (h) and (l) components indicated duplicate type of epistasis for all the characters in all the crosses. The crosses RSG-888 x ICC-4958, BG-362 x RSG-931 and IPC-94-94 x RSG-888 involving bold seeded cultivars (ICC-4958, BG-362 and IPC-94-94) as one of the parent performed better in the cross combination had high per se performance and significant positive heterobeltiosis with low inbreeding depression in one or more of the yield contributing characters even in rainfed condition, thus, could be utilized in future breeding programme. The higher magnitude of non-additive gene action viz., dominance (h) and dominance x dominance (l) in controlling of most of the characters in all the crosses suggests the use of recurrent selection by way of intermating the desirable segregants or the use of biparental intermating of desirable segregants in early segregating generation followed by selection, which may be handled through pedigree method of breeding. Presence of duplicate type of epistasis suggested that selection intensity should be mild in early and intense in the later generations with increased homozygosity.
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