Genetic architecture of fruit yield and its contributing quantitative traits in Abelmoschus esculentus (L.) Moench

The genetic architecture of fruit yield and its related quantitative traits viz., days to first flowering, days to first picking, plant height, primary branches per plant, stem girth, fruit length, fruit girth, fruit weight, fruits per plant and fruit yield per plant studied through generation mean analysis using six basic generations (P1, P2, F1, F2, BC1 and BC2) of six crosses HRB-55 x AOL-05-4, VRO-5 x Red Long, VRO-6 x AOL-05-3, GO-2 x AOL-04-3, Arka Anamika x AOL-03-1 and Parbhani Kranti x AOL-03-6 in two environments (E1 and E2). Among the generations within the crosses, the sum of squares showed significant differences for all characters. Fixable type of gene effects viz., additive [d] and additive x additive [i] found significant for days to first flowering in crosses HRB-55 x AOL-05-4 (E1), VRO-5 x Red Long (E2) and GO-2 x AOL-04-3 (E1). The similar kind of gene effects also observed for days to first picking (E1) and fruit weight (E2) in the cross GO-2 x AOL-04-3. In another case, dominance [h] and dominance x dominanace [l] which non-fixable gene effects were significant for days to first flowering in crosses VRO-5 x Red Long (E2) and GO-2 x AOL-04-3 (E1); stem girth in VRO-6 x AOL-05-3 (E1) and fruit length in Arka Anamika x AOL-03-1 (E1). Duplicate type of epistasis observed for days to first flowering in crosses, VRO-5 x Red Long (E2) and GO-2 x AOL-04-3 (E1); stem girth in VRO-6 x AOL-05-3 (E1) and fruit length in cross Arka Anamika x AOL-03-1 (E1). Results revealed additive and additive x additive types of fixable gene effects for days to first flowering and days to first picking as well as fruit yield and its contributing traits in some cross-environment combinations. This suggests simple selection or a single seed descent method could help for improvement of these traits. The results on epistatic gene effects for fruit yield and its contributing component traits in different cross-environment combinations suggests that recurrent selection, bi-parental mating and inter se mating between desirable segregants followed by selection or multiple crosses offer good promising methods.