Combining ability studies for yield and related traits in garden pea

Combining ability potential of the eight parents crossed in 8 × 8 full-diallel fashion and their 56 derived F1 hybrids were estimated to identify superior parents, desirable cross combinations and to fig. out mode of gene action for yield and related traits. Parental pea genotypes and F1 hybrids were planted in randomized complete block design with three replications at The University of Agriculture Peshawar-Pakistan during 2018-2019 pea-crop growing season. Mean squares due to general combining ability (GCA) and specific combining ability (SCA) effects were observed significant (p ≤ 0.01) for most of the studied traits which indicated the importance of both additive and non-additive gene actions in controlling their expression. The SCA variances were observed higher in magnitude than those of corresponding GCA variances, resultantly with GCA/SCA ratio of lesser than unity for seeds pod-1, 100-green seed weight and green pod yield depicting the importance of non-additive gene action in the inheritance of these characters. Leena Pak was identified as the good general combiner for days to first picking (-11.52) and plant height (-27.25) while UAP-29 appeared as the good general combiner for pods plant-1 (7.57). Highest GCA effects for seeds pod-1 (0.53), and green pod yield (10.16) were manifested by UAP-47. F1 cross combination UAP-47 × UAP-29 manifested the highest SCA effects for seeds pod-1 (1.31) and green pod yield (14.10). The genetic potential of the parental genotypes Leena Pak, UAP-29 and UAP-47 while F1 cross UAP-47 × UAP-29 for the desired traits could be exploited in pea hybridization programs. published by the Journal of Biodiversity and Environmental Sciences | JBES