Genetic Analysis of Yield and Yield Attributing Characters in Linseed (Linum usitatissimum L.)

A field experiment was conducted at Oilseed Research Area, Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, IGKV, Raipur (CG) during Rabi 2004-05 to estimate heterosis, Inbreeding depression, hereitability, genetic advance and genetic analysis of seed yield and its components in four crosses of linseed. The experimental material comprised of five parents namely, Solan, Kiran, R 552, LCK 88062, Polf 22 and SIKO 10 and their F₁, F₂ and F₃ generations of four different crosses namely, Solan x R 552, Solan x LCK 88062, Solan x Polf 22, Solan x SIKO 10. The hybrids F₁, F₂ and F₃ were evaluated along with their parents in randomized complete block design with four replications. The observations were recorded for aforesaid studies. The analysis revealed that significant positive heterosis were observed for Days to 50% flowering, plant height, no. of secondary branches per plant, no. of capsule per plant and seed yield per plant. High heritability estimate coupled with high genetic advance as percentage of mean for number of primary branches per plant, number of secondary branches per plant, number of capsules per plant, number of seeds per plant and seed yield per plant indicated contribution of additive gene effects for the expression of these traits. Hence, selection on these characters for improvement would be effective. The relative comparison of main gene effect revealed major contribution of dominance effects associated with dominance x dominance type of interaction effects in the expression of all the characters in the crosses. Duplicate type of epistasis played a major role in the expression of most of the characters studied in the crosses.