Vol. 8, Issue 1 (2019)

Author(s):
Paranthaman M, A Ramalingam, P Arunachalam and M Maavimani

Abstract:
The line x tester analysis was made in rice using good yielding 12 lines and three very early testers. The objective of the experiment is the development of better yielding with very early/ extra early rice cultivars by utilizing various duration high yielding varieties as lines and low yielding very early duration varieties as testers, collected from various places of India. The L x T analysis revealed the importance of dominance gene action for all the eleven traits namely, days to panicle initiation, days to 50 per cent flowering, plant height, total number of tillers per plant, number of productive tillers per plant, panicle length, flag leaf length, flag leaf width, number of grains per panicle, 100 grain weight and single plant yield. Heterosis breeding or hybridization followed by selection in later generations was suggested for the improvement of these traits. The parents of four lines viz., ADT (R) 45, ADT (R) 48, MDU 5, ADT (R) 37 and two testers viz., ANJALI and JALDHI DHAN-6 were found to be good general combiners for earliness and single plant yield and most of the yield attributing characters. The cross combinations viz., MDU 5 x ANJALI, ADT (R) 37 x ANJALI, ADT (R) 45 x JALDHI DHAN – 6, ADT (R) 48 x JALDHI DHAN – 6 and ADT (R) 45 x ANJALI was the best specific combiners for earliness along with single plant yield and most of the yield attributing characters. These four cross combinations may be useful for exploitation of heterosis and back cross to development of new extreme early cultivars with good yield.