Heterosis breeding for improving quality traits in brinjal for export in the tropics

Abstract

Brinjal has immense potential in heterosis breeding to develop hybrids with higher yield, good fruit quality and tolerance to fruit and shoot borer. Five diverse parents were crossed in diallel fashion without reciprocals to produce 10 F1 hybrids to determine gene effects, extent of heterosis and to estimate combining ability. Suitable breeding strategies for the condition of different characters under study by additive (total sugar content, fruit borer infestation), non-additive (days to first flowering, days to 50% flowering, plant height, number of primary branches per plant, total fruit yield per plant, marketable fruit yield per plant), both additive and non-additive (fruit length, fruit diameter, fruit weight, number of fruits per plant, total fruit phenol content) effects were discussed. One promising donor BCB-40 was identified based on significant desired gca effects and per se performance for total fruit yield per plant, marketable fruit yield per plant, fruit weight and low infestation of fruit borer for future breeding program. The maximum extent of significant heterobeltiosis in desired directions was recorded for marketable fruit yield per plant (50.22 %) and total fruit yield per plant (44.98 %). We could able to isolate one promising hybrid BCB-40 × KS-224 having all the desirable attributes for export promotion and could commercially be exploited after critical evaluation. Partial to over-dominance reactions for different economic traits reflect the genetic basis of heterosis.