HETEROSIS AND COMBINING ABILITY FOR SOME TRAITS OF INTRASPECIFIC AND INTERSPECIFIC HYBRIDIZATION BETWEEN SOLANUM MELONGENA AND SOLANUM MACROCARPON

Document Type : Original Article

Abstract

Four parents and their 12 F1 diallel crosses, involving three parentsbelonging to the speciesSolanum melongena L. and one parent belonging tospeciesSolanum macrocarpon L. were used. For heterotic effect, heterosis
over mid-parents and better parent were detected in many traits, viz.; plantheight(kg), number of branches per plant, and total chlorophyll. Also,heterosis over mid-parents and better parent were detected in early fruit yieldper plot(kg), early fruit number per plot and total fruit yield ton/fed. Forchemical traits heterosis over mid-parents and better parent were detected intotal carotene, anthocyanin content, total nitrogen content, total phosphorus,potassium content and total iron traits. The magnitude of GCA variance wasgreater than SCA variance suggesting the predominance of additive gene
action for most studied traits. Among the varieties, the good general combinerwas Balady Dark Long (P3) for plantheight, number of branches per plant,early fruit number per plot, total fruit yield ton/fed and total phosphorus,
Balady white Long (P2) for total chlorophyll, total nitrogen content, potassiumcontent and total iron. Among the varieties, Balady Dark Round (P1) was thebest for early fruit yield per plot and anthocyanin content, In the case of total
carotene Gboma (P4) was the best general combiner. The estimates ofspecific combining ability effects (SCA) showed superior specificcombinations, (P2xP3) for plant height, total fruit yield ton/fed and totalphosphorus and (P1xP2) for number of branches per plant, early fruit yield perplot, early fruit number per plot and total iron.While, (P1xP4) was the best fortotal chlorophyll, total carotene and total nitrogen content, (P2xP4) forpotassium content. Regarding, reciprocal effect (rij) the results revealed that
highest values recorded for (P4 x P1) in the case of plant height(cm), totalchlorophyll, total carotene and total iron. While, the hybrid (P3 x P1) was thebest for number of branches, early fruit yield per plot(kg), early fruit number
per plot and anthocyanin content and the hybrid (P4 x P2) for total fruityield(ton/fed) and total phosphorus , the hybrid (P4 x P3) for total nitrogencontent and the hybrid (P3 x P2) was the best for potassium content.Therefore, from general and specific combining ability and some geneticparameters suggested the importance of heterosis breeding for effectiveutilization of additive genetic variances which had the main role for theimprovement of the studied traits in eggplant crop.