Combining Ability Analysis to Identify Potential Parents and Hybrids for Yield and Its Related Traits in Soybean

A half diallel study was conducted using seven genotypes of soybean to identify superior parents suitable for developing high yielding new cultivars and hybrids in soybean. The mean squares due to GCA was significant for four characters out of five characters studied. The significance of GCA indicated that additive genes were important in controlling these characters. The parents TGx1989 – 21F exhibited maximum GCA for plant height, TGx1835 – 40E for number of branches and TGx1830–20E for number of pods, total pod weight and seed yield. The GCA effects indicated that parents TGx1835 – 40E, TGx1989 – 21F and TGx1830–20E were the best parents to be used in crossing programmes for the selection of desirable plants from segregating populations. The hybrids TGx1990 – 55F x TGx1990 – 37F expressed highest SCA effects for plant height and number of branches, TGx1990 – 37F x TGx1830–20E for number of pods and TGx1990 – 3F x TGx1990–57F for total pod weight and seed yield suggesting that these hybrids have the potential to be used for soybean hybrid development.