Studies on heterosis in slicing cucumber

Abstract

Fifteen F1 hybrids obtained by crossing 6 diverse parental lines of slicing cucumber through half-diallel method was studied to investigate the extent of heterosis for yield and its attributing characters. Pusa Uday (P5), DC-1 (P6) and CH-20 (P4) were observed to be the top performing parents for total yield per plant and produced yields of 1.51, 1.26 and 1.12 kg per plant, respectively. Appreciable heterosis was observed over better parents, top parents and standard parents for all the characters studied. In order of merit, P1 × P5 (CRC-8 × Pusa Uday), P2 × P5 (CHC-2 × Pusa Uday) and P3 × P5 (G-338 × Pusa Uday) were observed to be the three best performing F1 hybrids for yield per plant. The higher yield recorded by these hybrids could be due to earliness, increased number of fruits and fruit weight. The best performing F1 hybrid P1 × P5 which recorded 44.81% heterosis for yield over standard check (P5, Pusa Uday) may be exploited for commercial cultivation.