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 selecting appropriate 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 plant height, days to the first female flower, number of female flower-bearing nodes, number of lateral branches, days took to first fruit harvest, fruit length of fruit and fruit width using three cross combinations viz., Pusa Barkha × Pusa Parthenocarpic Cucumber-6, Pusa Uday × Pusa Parthenocarpic Cucumber-6 and Punjab Naveen × Pusa Parthenocarpic Cucumber-6. All six generations P1, P2, F1, F2, BC1P1 and BC2P2 were developed. Scaling test results indicated that the simple additive-dominance model is inefficient in describing gene effects in all three crosses, and interallelic interactions are present for all traits under study. Additive gene effects were significant in at least one cross out of three for all traits under study except the number of lateral branches and fruit width. In cross Punjab Naveen × Pusa Parthenocarpic Cucumber-6, a significant negative dominant gene effect was recorded for days to the first female flower and days to the first fruit harvest, indicating earliness in this cross combination, for the number of female flower-bearing nodes, significant positive dominant effects were present in cross combinations of Pusa Barkha × Pusa Parthenocarpic Cucumber-6 and Pusa Uday × Pusa Parthenocarpic Cucumber-6. For fruit length, Punjab Naveen × Pusa Parthenocarpic Cucumber-6 combination possessed a significant additive gene effect which can be tapped through a simple selection procedure.