Combining Ability Analysis for Grain Yield and Its Component Traits in Linseed (Linum usitatissimum L.)

Twenty-eight crosses generated from eight diverse parents of linseed (Linum usitatissimum L.) in diallel mating design (excluding reciprocal) were evaluated against Shekhar as check-in randomized block design for nine quantitative traits, to estimate the general combining ability (GCA) of the parents and specific combining ability (SCA) of crosses, for development of high yielding varieties. Analysis of variance revealed that the genotypes differed genetically from each other for all the nine characters studied. Combining ability analysis revealed that mean square due to GCA and SCA for days to 50 % flowering, days to 50 % maturity, plant height, number of primary branches, number seeds per capsules, oil percent and grain yield were significant. The genetic component of variances depicted that additive genetic variance was higher than non-additive genetic variance for plant height, number of capsules per plant and oil percent. Whereas, non-additive genetic variance was higher for the rest of the characters studied. SLS72 was found to be good general combiner for grain yield and its attributing traits viz. Oil percent, number of capsules per plant, shorter plant height and early flowering. Crosses PKDL71 x LCK7035, NL260 x SLS72, NL260 x Shekhar, RL26018 x Shekhar, LCK7035 x BAU-06-05 and RL26018 x LCK7035 showed higher positive significant SCA effects for grain yield per plant.