INVESTIGATING THE PHENOMENON OF HETEROSIS IN CUCUMBER VARIETIES FROM GIREI LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, ADAMAWA STATE

The present study was undertaken to study the heterosis of cucumber for yield and yield component traits. The experiment was conducted at Girei, Adamawa state. Ten F1 hybrids were developed by crossing five parental lines in half diallel crossing in 2023 and 2024. The six parents, Amarisa, Supermarketer, Marketmore, Poinsett 76, Poinsett and Local variety along with their hybrids were evaluated in a Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications. Significant differences among genotypes were obtained for all the characters studied with the exception of fruit length, fruit width and flesh thickness. Amarisa had the highest general combining ability effect for most of the traits under study which include width of leaf, length of leaf, vine length, placental thickness, fruit width, flesh thickness and fruit length. The cross Marketmore x Poinsett 76 has high Specific combining ability in fruit width, flesh thickness, fruit length and days to 50% flowering. Supermarketer x Poinsett had high positive heterosis over mid parent and heterosis over better parent for placental thickness and flesh thickness while Marketmore x Poinsett recorded for fruit length and fruit width. Amarisa x Supermarketer, exhibited superior performance for length of petiole and vine length over other crosses. Similarly, Marketmore x Poinsett has high value for fruit width