Combining Ability Analysis for Grain Improvement in Linseed (Linum usitatissimum L.)

Eight diverse parents of linseed (Linum usitatissimum L.) were used in diallel mating design
(excluding reciprocal) to generate twenty eight crosses and evaluated against Shekhar as check in
randomized block design for nine quantitative traits. General combining ability (GCA) of the parents
and specific combining ability (SCA) of crosses were estimated for development of high yielding
varieties. Analysis of variance revealed that the genotypes differed genetically from each others for all
the nine characters studied. Combining ability analysis revealed that mean square due to GCA and
SCA for days to 50% flowering, days to 50% maturity, plant height, number of primary branch, number
seeds per capsules, oil percent and grain yield were significant. Genetic component of variances
depicted that additive genetic variance were higher than non-additive genetic variance for plant
height, number of capsules per plant and oil percent. Whereas, non-additive genetic variance was
higher for rest of the characters studied. SLS72 was found to be good general combiner for grain yield
and its attributing traits viz. Oil percent, number of capsules per plant, shorter plant height and early
flowering. Crosses PKDL71 x LCK7035, NL260 x SLS72, NL260 x Shekhar, RL26018 x Shekhar,
LCK7035 x BAU-06-05 and RL26018 x LCK7035 showed higher positive significant SCA effects for
grain yield per plant.