COMBINING ABILITY AND GENE ACTION ANALYSIS IN OKRA (ABELMOSCHUS ESCULENTUS L. MOENCH) OVER DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTS

This study aimed to determine the general combining ability of the parents and the specific combining ability of crosses over the environments for various traits of okra [Abelmoschus esculentus (L.) Moench].The crossing programme was conducted during Summer 2022 at Horticultural Instructional Farm, C. P. College of Agriculture, S. D. Agricultural University, Sardarkrushinagar, Gujarat, India.The experiment was conducted at three different environments during Kharif 2022 (E 1 ), Summer 2023 (E 2 ) and Kharif 2023 (E 3 ).The experimental material consisted of eleven parents (7 lines and 4 testers) and their twentyeight resulting crosses with a one standard check GJOH-4 was evaluated in a randomized block design with three replications by using line tester analysis under three different environments.Analysis of variance for combining ability over the environments revealed that mean squares due to environments were highly significant for majority of the traits.The ratio of 2 gca/ 2 sca is less than unity for most of traits under majority of environments as well as pooled which indicated the preponderance of nonadditive gene action in the inheritance of those traits.Which also favoured heterosis breeding.Among parents, line JOL-14-10 was good general combiner for early flowering, picking and fruit yield per plant as well as yield attributing traits viz., number of primary branch per plant, number of fruit per plant, fruit length, fruit diameter and average fruit weight under majority of environments as well as pooled.Out of eleven parents under study, line JDNOL-11-03 was good general combiner for chlorophyll A, chlorophyll B, total chlorophyll content, mucilage content, crude fiber content and moisture content under majority of environments.The crosses IC 111443 GO 6 and JOL-14-10 GO 6 showed significant positive sca effects for number of fruit per plant.The cross JOL-14-10 GO 6 proved to be a good specific combiner for fruit yield per plant and its attributing traits viz., fruit length, fruit diameter, average fruit weight, days to last picking under majority of environments.Also, this cross is best specific combiner for quality traits like, chlorophyll A, chlorophyll B, total chlorophyll content, mucilage content, crude fiber content and moisture content over the environments.Hence, this cross could be suggested from this study for further evaluation in further breeding program with the aim of commercial exploitation of hybrid under the diverse climatic condition.The F 2 population of this cross was need to put into the generation advancement for getting good transgressive segregant in future breeding program.