Exploitation of heterosis using diverse parental lines in Rabi Sorghum

• Main Author: Prabhakar and M. S. Raut
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Indian Society of Plant Breeders 2010-07-01
• Series: Electronic Journal of Plant Breeding
• Subjects: Rabi sorghum; parental lines; combining ability; heterosis; exploitation
• Online Access: http://sites.google.com/site/ejpb10/vol-1-4-3/Vol-1-4-680-684.pdf?attredirects=0

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) is one of the major crops for grain and fodder, widely grown in India under rain fedconditions. Rabi sorghum is grown in an area of 5.5 million hectares mainly in the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka and AndhraPradesh with average productivity of 854 kg/ha. Despite low productivity, Rabi sorghum continues to be an importantcomponent of dry land economy in these states with fairly consistent area over many years. The low yields are mainly due tovarious abiotic and biotic stresses. Hybrid vigour and its commercial exploitation have paid rich dividends in Kharif sorghumleading to quantum jump in sorghum production. However, the progress in Rabi sorghum is limited and there is a need forcritical studies on combining ability and heterosis involving diverse sources of breeding lines. Present study comprised a line xtester analysis involving 2 lines and 7 testers for exploitation of heterosis and assessing best combiners. Combining abilitystudies revealed the presence of significant differences due to lines, testers and line x testers, indicating the presence ofvariability. Considering the general combining ability effects of parents, female SL-19B and males SLR-13, SLR-24 and SLR-30 were good general combiners for grain yield and the female SL-12B and male SLR-10 and SLR-27 were good generalcombiners for earliness. The crosses SL-19B x SLR-13, SL-19B x SLR-17, SL-19B x SLR-30 and SL-19B x SLR-39 wereidentified for improving grain yield and crosses SL-12B x SLR-10, SL-12B x SLR-27 and SL-12B x SLR-39 were selected forbreeding earliness.