Combining ability study for yield and quality traits in cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.)

Abstract

Seven cucumber (Cucumissativus L.) genotypes (3 lines and 4 testers) were crossed in a line × tester mating design. The resultant 12 hybrids and their parents were evaluated using Randomised Block Design with two replications during Kharif 2018. Sufficient genetic variability was observed for all the characters under study. In this study, the parents L2 (Koradacherry local), T2 (Orathanadu local) and T3 (Aipatti local) exhibited high positive GCA (General Combining Ability) effects for yield related traits and high negative GCA effects for earliness characters. The parent T2 identified in this study may be used in multiple crossing programme to isolate high yielding varieties. Among the hybrid combinations, L2xT3, L1xT2 and L3xT4 expressed the maximum positive significant SCA (Specific Combining Ability) effects for yield and yield associated characters. In the above cross combinations one parent was a good combiner and the other was an average/poor combiner; hence the hybrids can be exploited for transgressive selection.

Keywords

• combining ability
• cucumis sativus
• line x tester
• gca
• sca