COMBINING ABILITY ANALYSIS IN DIVERSE CYTOPLASMIC MALE STERILE SOURCES OF PEARL MILLET (PENNISETUM GLAUCUM L. R. BR.)

The present investigation entitled "Combining ability analysis in diverse cytoplasmic male sterile sources of pearl millet [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br.]" was carried out with aim to estimate the general combining ability of the parents and specific combining ability of hybrids for improving the grain yield and its attributing characters in three diverse cytoplasmic male sterile (CMS) sources A 1 , A 4 and A 5 .The experimental material comprised of nine female lines (Three diverse male sterile lines of three diverse cytoplasmic male sterile sources A 1 , A 4 and A 5 ) and eight male lines as parental material with their seventy-two F 1 s and standard check (GHB 1129) that evaluated in Randomized Block Design with three replications.The analysis of variance for combining ability in three diverse cytoplasmic male sterile sources A 1 , A 4 and A 5 revealed that the significant difference was observed among the females, males and hybrids for most of the characters under study which indicating the existence of considerable amount of variability in the experimental material.Combining ability studies suggested that non-additive type of gene action involved in the expression of plant height, number of effective tiller per plant, ear head length, grain yield per plant, test weight, dry fodder yield per plant, harvest index, protein content, iron and zinc content in all CMS sources.Among the parents, ICMR 17555 and ICMR 19444 in CMS source A 1 ; ICMA 81 and ICMR 15777 in CMS source A 4 whereas, ICMA 81, ICMA 843 and ICMR 17555, ICMR 18196 and ICMR 19444 in CMS source A 5 were identified as good general combiner for grain yield per plant.The best performing hybrids namely, ICMA 843 ICMR 19444 in CMS source A 1 ; ICMA 843 ICMR 15888 in CMS source A 4 and ICMA 81 ICMR 19444 in CMS source A 5 had highly significant and desired sca effect as well as high per se performance for grain yield per plant.