Author(s):

Jeeterwal RC, Sharma LD and Nehra Anju

Abstract: The present investigation was under taken to the study of combining ability in pearl millet in 10x10 diallel set, excluding reciprocals, for grain yield and its 12 component traits. Both GCA and SCA variances were highly significant for all the characters in all the tree environments except. The ratio of GCA and SCA revealed preponderance of non- additive gene action in expression of all the characters viz., grain yield per plant, days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, productive tillers per plant, plant height, panicle length, panicle girth, biological yield per plant, dry fodder yield per plant, harvest index, test weight, Fe content and Zn content. Among the Parent RIB-3135 followed by RIB-335/74, MIR-525-2 and RIB-192 were found to be uniformly best parent across the environments for grain yield per plant and could be used in hybridization programme to exploit their GCA effects for grain yield and some important attributing traits. Parent HBL-11was found to be a better general combiner across the environments for days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, productive tillers per plant, plant height, panicle girth, biological yield and Fe content, parent RIB-57 was found to be a better general combiner for plant height, test weight and Fe content, parent H77/833-2-202 was found to be a better general combiner for plant height, panicle length and Fe content, parent G77/107 was found to be a better general combiner for panicle length, Fe and Zn content, parent J-2340 was found to be desirable general combiner for dry fodder yield, parent RIB-494 was found to be desirable general combiner for harvest index. The crosses viz., P5 x P9 in all the environments followed by P4 x P6 in E_1, P5 x P10 followed by P1 x P2 in E₂ and P6 x P7 followed by P2 x P6 in E₃ were the most promising having good SCA, coupled with high per se performance and heterobeltiosis for grain yield and some of its components. Analyses of crosses revealed majority of the superior crosses were involved poor x good or average x poor or average x good and few cases good x good general combiners. The development of new inbred lines with high per se performance and good combining ability, through appropriate breeding methodology is suggested.

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