Heterosis and combining ability analysis for yield related traits in rice hybrids involving land races

The exploitation of heterosis is possible only when the parents involved in the crosses show high specific combining ability in the hybrids. Fifty hybrids generated from ten lines (land races) and five testers along with parents were evaluated for eight quantitative traits to elucidate the nature of gene action present in the inheritance of important quantitative traits. Preponderance of non additive gene action was observed for all the characters studied. RAJAMUDI and MOHINI SAMBA among the lines and ASD 16 and CO 47 among the testers were found to be good general combiners as they could contribute alleles with positive effect for improving the important quantitative traits. The crosses RAJAMUDI × ASD 16, RAJAMUDI × CO 47 and MOHINI SAMBA × ASD 16 performed better than the check varieties CO 51 and ASD 16 for most of the traits and showed significance for standard heterosis and these three crosses can be further forwarded to recombination breeding.