Abstract

The nature and magnitude of genetic variance for yield and its component traits were studied in Indian bean using diallel analysis. The estimates of general combining ability (GCA) variance were much higher than specific combining ability (SCA) variance except days to 50% flowering, number of pod per cluster and fiber content; this indicated the importance of both additive as well as non-additive gene effects are involved in the expression of these characters. Genotypes NIB-69 and NIB-54 were identified as good general combiner for pod yield per plant. The cross combination viz., NIB-57 x NIB-69, NIB-69 x NIB-80, NIB-32 x NIB-54, NIB-41 x NIB-69 and NIB-23 x NIB-54 were the most promising crosses for improvement of pod yield. In the light of present study, the use of good general combining parents in the hybridization programme, selection of the desirable segregants from the segregating generations by adopting progeny selection method for exploiting additive genetic variance would lead to rapid improvement in this crop.

Key words: Genetic variance, diallel analysis, Indian bean.