Genetics and Plant Breeding

Sixty crosses of maize were developed through Line x Tester design using two male testers and thirty medium maturing female inbred lines. These 60 crosses along with parents and two commercial checks, viz., Bio 9544 and Palam Sankar Makka-2 were evaluated during Kharif 2016. The mean square due to parents, crosses and parents v/s crosses were significant for all the traits, except, days to 75% brown husk. The ratio of σ 2 GCA/σ 2 SCA was less than one for all the traits except plant height. This indicated that the preponderance of non-additive gene effects in the inheritance of these traits. Among female inbred lines, L28 was observed to be a good general combiner for grain yield, cob length, biological yield and protein content. Tester T1 was found to be a good general combiner for 1000 grain weight, biological yield and protein content whereas tester T2 for grain yield, cob girth, harvest index, plant height and cob placement. High level of heterosis over best check was observed for yield contributing and quality traits. Three cross combinations L28 × T2, L15 × T2 and L23 × T1 were identified most promising on the basis of their per se performance, SCA effects and significant heterosis for different traits mainly for yield and earliness indicated potential for exploiting hybrid vigour in breeding programme and might be used for obtaining high yielding maize hybrids.

The present investigation consisted of six Urdbean cultivars and fifteen crosses developed using half diallel mating design to study the mean performance of genotypes and heterosis among the crosses. The crosses (F2's) along with the parental genotypes were grown in a randomized block design with three replications at Experimental Farm of the Department of Crop Improvement, CSK HPKV Palampur (H.P.) during Kharif, 2018. The data were recorded for yield and yield contributing traits. Mean performance and standard heterosis is studied over the check variety i.e. Palampur-93. Analysis of variance revealed that there was sufficient variability among the parental lines and cross combinations. Standard heterosis for seed yield per plant ranged from-36.25 per cent (IC-281994 X DU-1) to 34.55 per cent (HPBU-111× KU-553). Significant positive heterosis for seed yield was observed in only one cross HPBU-111× KU-553 (34.55%), whereas seven crosses were statistically at par with the check. T...

The present investigation consisted of six Urdbean cultivars and fifteen crosses developed using half diallel mating design to study the mean performance of genotypes and heterosis among the crosses. The crosses (F2's) along with the parental genotypes were grown in a randomized block design with three replications at Experimental Farm of the Department of Crop Improvement, CSK HPKV Palampur (H.P.) during Kharif, 2018. The data were recorded for yield and yield contributing traits. Mean performance and standard heterosis is studied over the check variety i.e. Palampur-93. Analysis of variance revealed that there was sufficient variability among the parental lines and cross combinations. Standard heterosis for seed yield per plant ranged from-36.25 per cent (IC-281994 X DU-1) to 34.55 per cent (HPBU-111× KU-553). Significant positive heterosis for seed yield was observed in only one cross HPBU-111× KU-553 (34.55%), whereas seven crosses were statistically at par with the check. T...

The present study was conducted during Rabi season 2018-19 with 58 diverse oat genotypes in order to study genetic diversity for different agro-morphological and quality traits among dual purpose and seed yield purpose systems separately. Based on D 2 statistic, genotypes were grouped into 12 clusters in case of dual purpose system whereas 11 clusters in seed related system. The inter-cluster distances were observed to be higher than intra-cluster. Cluster I emerged as the largest cluster followed by Cluster II under both the systems. Among both the systems, β-glucan content contributed maximum towards genetic divergence followed by crude protein content of seed while the lowest by leaf: stem ratio and harvest index under dual purpose and seed yield purpose systems, respectively. Genotypes IG-03-205, EC-528883 and OS-6 were found more diverse under both the systems which can be utilized in future hybridization programmes.

Variability and genetic diversity assessment is foremost activity to be embarked before any crop improvement programme. Divergence analysis is helpful in identifying suitable and diverse parents for realizing high heterotic effects with transgressive segregants in later generations. Thus, a field experiment was conducted using 30 genotypes of linseed germplasm in randomized block design with three replications during rabi 2018-19 to assess the extent of genetic diversity. As per the results obtained, cluster analysis grouped whole germplasm into VI clusters. Cluster II was the largest with 10 linseed accessions and cluster I was smallest with single accession. The inter-cluster distance was the farthest between cluster I and cluster VI (D 2 =7.143) followed by cluster I and III (D 2 =7.134) depicting greater genetic divergence among clusters. The intra-cluster distance ranged from 2.066 in cluster II to 2.776 in cluster IV. The contribution of days to maturity (11.08%), technical height (10.63%) and seeds per capsule (9.66%) towards genetic divergence were higher. During PCA analysis, seven principal components (PC1 to PC7) had eigen values greater than one and accounted for 99.70% of the total variance while the first principal component (PC1) alone explained about 50.30% of the entire variability. The major contributing characters from the first PC, were days to 50% flowering, plant height, technical height, primary and secondary branches per plant, capsules per plant along with aerial biomass and seed yield per plant.

An experiment was conducted to study the nature and magnitude of genetic variability with a view to identify promising genotypes for yield and related traits in linseed. Eighteen diverse linseed (Linum usitatissimum L.) genotypes were evaluated in randomized block design in three replications during rabi 2019-20 for twelve agro morphological characters to assess the genetic parameters of variability. Analysis of variance indicated presence of a wide range of genetic variability among genotypes for all the traits. The higher phenotypic coefficient values than corresponding genotypic coefficient values depicted influence of environment in the expression of traits. Technical height exhibited highest GCV value while the lowest GCV was observed for days to 75% maturity. High estimates of PCV and GCV indicate sufficient variability, signifying the effectiveness of the selection of desirable types for improvement of such characters. The high expected genetic advance expressed as percentage of mean were recorded for technical height, aerial biomass per plant, plant height, primary branches per plant and secondary branches per plant. High heritability with moderate genetic advance was observed for technical height indicating the presence of additive and non-additive gene action. Path analysis revealed, direct and indirect effects of genotypic path coefficient were higher in magnitude than the corresponding phenotypic path coefficients. Highest positive direct effect on seed yield was shown harvest index followed by aerial biomass, plant height, secondary branches per plant and days to 75% maturity. The obtained results could be used further in breeding programmes.

Aim, Design and Methodology: A research with 21 soybean genotypes including three checks was carried out in kharif 2021 at Research Farm of Genetics and Plant Breeding, CSK HPKV Palampur to estimate the genetic variation, heritability and genetic advance for 13 agro-morphological & seed yield component traits that can be used as selection criteria in breeding programmes. RBD design was used to set up the experiment with a plot size of 3 × 1.35=4.05 m2 and replicated three times. Results and Conclusion: The results of the analysis of variance revealed that the genotypes varied considerably for days to 50 percent flowering, days to 75 percent maturity, plant height (cm), number of nodes per plant, inter-nodal length (cm), number of branches per plant, number of pods per plant, pod length (cm), number of seeds per pod, seed yield per plant (g), 100-seed weight (g), biological yield per plant (g) and harvest index (%) showing the genetic divergence of the planting materials from one ano...

Variability and genetic diversity assessment is foremost activity to be embarked before any crop improvement programme. Divergence analysis is helpful in identifying suitable and diverse parents for realizing high heterotic effects with transgressive segregants in later generations. Thus, a field experiment was conducted using 30 genotypes of linseed germplasm in randomized block design with three replications during rabi 2018-19 to assess the extent of genetic diversity. As per the results obtained, cluster analysis grouped whole germplasm into VI clusters. Cluster II was the largest with 10 linseed accessions and cluster I was smallest with single accession. The inter-cluster distance was the farthest between cluster I and cluster VI (D2=7.143) followed by cluster I and III (D2=7.134) depicting greater genetic divergence among clusters. The intra-cluster distance ranged from 2.066 in cluster II to 2.776 in cluster IV. The contribution of days to maturity (11.08%), technical height...

The present investigation consisted of six Urdbean cultivars and fifteen crosses developed using half diallel mating design to study the mean performance of genotypes and heterosis among the crosses. The crosses (F2's) along with the parental genotypes were grown in a randomized block design with three replications at Experimental Farm of the Department of Crop Improvement, CSK HPKV Palampur (H.P.) during Kharif, 2018. The data were recorded for yield and yield contributing traits. Mean performance and standard heterosis is studied over the check variety i.e. Palampur-93. Analysis of variance revealed that there was sufficient variability among the parental lines and cross combinations. Standard heterosis for seed yield per plant ranged from-36.25 per cent (IC-281994 X DU-1) to 34.55 per cent (HPBU-111× KU-553). Significant positive heterosis for seed yield was observed in only one cross HPBU-111× KU-553 (34.55%), whereas seven crosses were statistically at par with the check. Thirteen genotypes were recorded significantly superior to the check for mean value of seed yield per plant. Mean value for this trait ranged from 2.29 g to 3.45 g. On the basis of per se performance for physiological and yield related traits, three crosses viz., HPBU-111 × KU-553, Palampur-93 × IC-281994 and Him Mash × KU-553 were identified as best cross combinations. These crosses can be further evaluated at Multilocations for commercial exploitation.

The present investigation consisted of six Urdbean cultivars and fifteen crosses developed using half diallel mating design to study the mean performance of genotypes and heterosis among the crosses. The crosses (F2's) along with the parental genotypes were grown in a randomized block design with three replications at Experimental Farm of the Department of Crop Improvement, CSK HPKV Palampur (H.P.) during Kharif, 2018. The data were recorded for yield and yield contributing traits. Mean performance and standard heterosis is studied over the check variety i.e. Palampur-93. Analysis of variance revealed that there was sufficient variability among the parental lines and cross combinations. Standard heterosis for seed yield per plant ranged from-36.25 per cent (IC-281994 X DU-1) to 34.55 per cent (HPBU-111× KU-553). Significant positive heterosis for seed yield was observed in only one cross HPBU-111× KU-553 (34.55%), whereas seven crosses were statistically at par with the check. Thirteen genotypes were recorded significantly superior to the check for mean value of seed yield per plant. Mean value for this trait ranged from 2.29 g to 3.45 g. On the basis of per se performance for physiological and yield related traits, three crosses viz., HPBU-111 × KU-553, Palampur-93 × IC-281994 and Him Mash × KU-553 were identified as best cross combinations. These crosses can be further evaluated at Multilocations for commercial exploitation.