Heterosis breeding in Indian mustard (Brassica juncea L. Czern & Coss): Analysis of component characters contributing to heterosis for yield

Summary Divergence of 25 accessions of Brassica juncea of Indian, CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States, former USSR) and synthetic origin was studied by D² analysis. On the basis of divergence, ten accessions were selected and crossed in a diallel fashion without reciprocals to study the combining ability and heterosis. None of the accessions was found to be a good general combiner for all the nine quantitative characters that were studied. Significant heterosis over better parent for single plant yield was recorded in CIS x Indian and synthetic x CIS crosses (5 each) followed by Indian x synthetic types (3). The analysis of component characters showed that the mean performance of the majority of hybrids was intermediate for five out of six yield attributing traits, thus exhibiting dominance or partial dominance effect. To estimate the contribution of such yield attributing traits towards heterosis for yield, a comparison was made among three parameters viz. heterosis over mid parent (MP), better parent (BP) and better yielding parent (BYP) of the concerned hybrid. It was observed that estimation of heterosis from BYP was a more accurate method to determine the contribution of component characters towards yield heterosis than the analysis based on MP and BP. From the component character analysis, it was concluded that characters like number of primary and secondary branches, number of siliqua per plant and siliqua density contributed significantly towards heterosis in yield. Plot level yield trials of two selected hybrids (Skorospieka II x RH30 and Donskaja IV x Varuna) over two growing seasons revealed 29.4 to 91.8% heterosis over BYP.