Genetic effects on fruit and seed traits in intra and interspecific hybridization derived populations involving hull-less seeded pumpkin Garcha Karmvir S1, Dhatt Ajmer S.2,*, Verma Neha1, Sharma Madhu1, Khosa Jiffinvir S1, Kaur Barinder1, Meena O P1 1Department of Vegetable Science, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana-141 004, Punjab 2Directorate of Research, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana-141 004, Punjab *Corresponding author: ajmerdhatt@pau.edu
Online published on 28 September, 2023. Abstract Sufficient understanding about genetic composition of the traits associated with yield and quality helps crop breeders to design their breeding program. The goal of this study was to estimate the main genetic effects on fruit and seed traits from crosses involving hulled and hull-less seeded parents. The intraspecific [LGR-121/VSR-5921 (Cucurbita pepo)] and interspecific [HLP-36/PVR-1343 (C. pepo/C. moschata)] hybridization derived six generations (P1, P2, F1, F2, BC1 and BC2) were evaluated using generation mean analysis. Significant differences were observed among all six generations for the fruit (3) and seed (5) traits under study. The additive-dominance model assessed through scaling test revealed adequacy only for seed number in intraspecific cross while, seed thickness and 100 seed weight in interspecific cross. Non-allelic interactions with duplicate type of epistasis were observed for remaining traits. - - It was observed - that most of the fruit and seed traits in intra and interspecific crosses expressed epistatic effects. Hence, improvement for these traits requires breeding methods like recurrent selection that can exploit non-additive variation in subsequent generations. Top Keywords Cucurbita moschata, Cucurbita pepo, Epistasis, Hull-less seed, Generation mean analysis. Top |