Genetic combining ability for yield and other economic traits in brinjal (Solanum melongena L.) Prasad V1, Dwivedi V K2, Deshpande A A3, Singh B K4 Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, C. C. S. University, Meerut, Uttar Pradesh 1Vegetable Research and Development, J. K. Agri Genetics Ltd., Sonepat, Haryana 2J. V. College Barout, Bagpat, Uttar Pradesh 3Vegetable Research and Development, J. K. Agri Genetics Ltd., Bangalore, Karnataka 4ICAR-Indian Institute of Vegetable Research (IIVR), Shahanshahpur-221305, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh; E-mail: bksinghkushinagar@yahoo.co.in Online published on 8 July, 2016. Abstract An 8 × 8 half diallel set of crosses were made to identify promising genotypes and crosses and to suggest suitable breeding approaches for increasing simultaneous yield and consumers’ preference traits in brinjal. The estimates of GCA effectsindicated that the parents, namely Black beauty, Pusa Purple Long, Pusa Purple Round and Surati Ravaiya excelled for eleven, nine, nine and eight economic traits, respectively. Desirable SCA effects for yield of marketable fruits per plant were observed in eleven crosses (Pusa Purple Long × Black Beauty, Manjarigota × Surati Ravaiya, BB-44 × Surati Ravaiya, Green Long ×Black Beauty, Black Beauty×Surati Ravaiya, Pusa Purple Long × Green Long, Gulabi Long × Pusa Purple Round, Gulabi Long×Black Beauty, Pusa Purple Long × Gulabi Long, Pusa Purple Long × Pusa Purple Round, Gulabi Long × Surati Ravaiya). However, six cross combinations (Black Beauty × Surati Ravaiya, Pusa Purple Long × Black Beauty, Gulabi Long × Surati Ravaiya, Pusa Purple Long × Green Long, BB-44 × Black Beauty and Pusa Purple Long × Gulabi Long) were found to be best for fruit yield. These crosses have at least one of the parents as good general combiner and could be exploited through heterosis breeding and hybridization followed by selection breeding approaches. Top Keywords GCA, SCA, diallel analysis, eggplant (Solanum melongena L.), quantitative traits. Top |