Generation mean analysis of earliness and fruit yield related traits in Cucumber

Abstract

Gene effects associated with earliness and yield-related traits offer an advantage in the selection ofappropriate breeding strategies to bring improvement of fruit yield in Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.). Therefore,a generation mean analysis study was conducted to investigate the gene effects present in traits like plantheight, days to first female flower, number of female flower-bearing nodes, number of lateral branches, daystook to first fruit harvest, fruit length fruit and fruit width using three cross combinations viz., Pusa Barkha ×Pusa Parthenocarpic Cucumber-6, Pusa Uday × Pusa Parthenocarpic Cucumber-6 and Punjab Naveen × PusaParthenocarpic Cucumber-6. All six generations P1, P2, F1, F2, BC1P1 and BC2P2 were developed. Scaling testresults indicated that the simple additive-dominance model is inefficient to describe gene effects in all threecrosses and interallelic interactions are present for all traits under study. Additive gene effects were significantin at least one cross out of three crosses for all traits under study except the number of lateral branches and fruitwidth. In cross Punjab Naveen × Pusa Parthenocarpic Cucumber-6, a significant negative dominant gene effectwas recorded for days to the first female flower and days took to first fruit harvest which indicates earliness inthis cross combination. For the number of female flower-bearing nodes, significant positive dominant effectswere present in cross combinations of Pusa Barkha × Pusa Parthenocarpic Cucumber-6 and Pusa Uday × PusaParthenocarpic Cucumber-6. For fruit length, Punjab Naveen × Pusa Parthenocarpic Cucumber-6 combinationpossessed significant additive gene effect which can be tapped through a simple selection procedure