Combining ability of cms lines and pollen fertility restorers in pigeonpea [Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.]

The present study was undertaken to know the combining ability in pigeonpea [Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.] for yield and its contributing characters. The hybrids were developed by adopting line × tester mating design involving six newly converted cytoplasmic male sterile lines as female parents and twelve newly developed pollen fertility restorer lines as male parents in different maturity groups viz., early, medium and late during kharif 2006. The resultant 72 hybrids were evaluated along with their parents and the check GTH1 (a cytoplasmic genic male sterility based hybrid). Combining ability analysis revealed presence of both additive and nonadditive gene effects. The specific combining ability (sca) variance was found to be more important compared to general combining ability (gca) variance for days to flowering, days to maturity, plant height, branches per plant, pods per plant, seeds per pod, pod length, 100-seed weight, seed yield per plant, protein content, biological yield per plant, harvest index, vegetative period and reproductive period. The female lines viz. CMS GT 0301A, CMS GT 306A and CMS GT 0307A and male lines viz. AGTR 0534, GTR0525, AGTR 0540 and AGTR0536 were good general combiners for seed yield per plant. These lines were also good or average combiners for other yield contributing traits. Concerning sca effects, none of the hybrids showed significant and high sca effects for all the traits. Twenty–nine hybrids showed significant positive sca effects on pooled basis for seed yield per plant The best five hybrids exhibiting high sca effects were CMS GT 087A × GTR 0525 (43.06), CMS GT 307 A × AGTR 0538 (41.70), CMS GT087A×AGTR 0539 (28.68), CMS GT 087A×AGTR 0534 (28.46) and CMS GT 0308 A × AGTR 0536 (28.00) for seed yield per plant. Based on overall results, hybrids CMS GT 087A× GTR 0525, CMSGT 087A×AGTR 0534, CMS GT 0301A×AGTR 0534 andCMS GT0308A×AGTR0536 could be valuable for large scale testing for their general adaptability and subsequently, for their commercial exploitation.