Genetics of Fruit Yield and Its Traits in Okra [Abelmoschus esculentus (L.) Moench]

Abstract

A Half-diallel mating design involving nine okra genotypes was used to study the inheritance of fruit yield and its component characters in okra. Data from the F1 generation and parents were analysed using Hayman's (1954) method of diallel analysis. The estimated component of genetic variation revealed that additive component (D) was significant for number of branches per plant and fruit girth in E1 and fruit girth in E3 environment. However, additive component was non-significant in all three environments for fruit yield per plant. The dominant components (H1 and H2) were significant for all the characters in all the environments. These results revealed the importance of both additive and non-additive component of gene action in the expression of traits under study. The relative magnitude of dominant component (H1 and H2) was higher than additive component for most of the traits indicating that dominance gene action involved in expression of most of the characters under studied.  The average degree of dominance for fruit yield per plant and most of the traits was more than unity in all the three environments which suggested over dominance effect in expression of all the traits. The proportion of genes with positive and negative effects in parents was deviated from 0.25 in all three environments suggesting asymmetrical distribution of positive as well as negative alleles among the parents for fruit yield per plant. The ratio of dominant and recessive genes in the parents were also greater than unity in all the three environments, indicated excess of dominant genes were present in the parents for fruit yield per plant. In the presence of overdominance for yield, reciprocal recurrent selection is the best recurrent scheme to develop hybrids.