HETEROSIS STUDIES IN OKRA (ABELMOSCHUS ESCULENTUS (L.) MOENCH) FOR SOME IMPORTANT BIOMETRICAL TRAITS

Okra is one of the important vegetables grown in India during both summer and rainy seasons.
This is an often cross-pollinated crop showing 4–19% cross pollination.
Emasculation and pollination processes are easier due to large flower and monoadelphous stamens.
This enables the breeder to exploit the hybrid vigor through manual hybridization.
Considering the importance of bhindi, an investigation was carried out with five lines and two testers with three replications at Agricultural College and Research Institute, Madurai during 2001–2002 in order to determine the extent to which the heterosis is manifested.
The observations recorded were plant height, days to first flowering, number of nodes/plant, fruit length, fruit girth, number of fruits/plant, single fruit weight, number of seeds/fruit, 100 seed weight, crude fibre content, protein content, and yield/plant.
The results revealed highly significant differences for all the characters among the parent and genotypes studied indicating wider range of variability.
Among all the crosses evaluated, the cross combination IC 169340 x IC 112475 exhibited highest heterosis for all the characters studied.

I International Conference on Indigenous Vegetables and Legumes. Prospectus for Fighting Poverty, Hunger and Malnutrition

K. Shoba, S. Mariappan

okra, biometrical traits, heterosis

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2007.752.79