Exploitation of heterosis for seed yield and its contributing characters in sesame

A study was conducted to estimate the magnitude of heterosis for twelve quantitative characters including seed yield per plant in 28 hybrids of Sesame developed by half-diallel mating design. The analysis of variance revealed that the mean squares due to genotypes were highly significant for all the characters. Highly significant differences were also observed among the parents as well as hybrids for all the traits under study. It indicated that the experimental material used for investigation had adequate genetic variability for all the characters studied. The parents vs. hybrids comparison were significant for all the characters except test weight, indicating substantial amount of heterosis among hybrids. Heterosis was worked out over better parent and standard check, GT 2. On the basis of per se performance, standard heterosis over check GT 2, TMV 4 × GT 10, Rama × Kayamkulam 1 and AKT 101 × GT 5 were the best hybrids. These hybrids recorded the highest standard heterosis and desirable heterobeltiosis for seed yield per plant. While, on the basis of heterobeltiosis, AKT 101 × GT 5, AKT 101 × GT 10 and AKT 101 × GT 3 were the most promising hybrids for seed yield per plant.The heterosis for seed yield per plant was associated with the heterosis expressed by its component characters.