Seed dormancy in groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.): II. Estimation of gene effects in six crosses. (188)

Abstract

Gene effects for seed dormancy and days to first flowering were estimated in six crosses (Somnath x TMV 10, Somnath x J-11, Chico x GG-11, Chico x JSP-23, JL-24 x GG-11, and JL-24 x J-11) between ssp. hypogaea and fastigiata of groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) using generation mean analysis. Scaling tests and ?2 values were significant for both characters in all the crosses (except JL-24 x J-11 for seed dormancy) indicating the presence of non-allelic gene interactions. Additive effects, dominance effects, and duplicate epistatic interaction effects were found to be significant in two crosses. For all other crosses, additive gene effects were predominant for seed dormancy and, hence, a simple pedigree selection scheme can be followed to improve this character in these crosses. Similarly for days to first flowering, additive gene effects were predominant in four crosses indicating that earliness can be fixed through pedigree selection, while in two crosses dominance x dominance gene effects were significant with higher magnitude, indicating that early generation selection may lead to ambiguity in these two crosses.