A Study on the Inheritance of Some Economically Important Characters in 4 Cultivars of Eggplant (Solanum melongena var. esculenta Nees.) II. Gene Actions Controlling the Characters

Abstract

Six crosses derived from 4 eggplant lines were studied for gene actions controlling their economic characters, viz. plant height, flowering date, fruit shape, fruit weight, number of fruits per plant, and yield per plant using generation mean analysis consisting of P1, P2, F1, F2, BC1 and BC2. Additive gene action was important in all characters studied except yield per plant, which was largely conditioned by the interaction of dominance x dominance gene effect. All characters except yield per plant were highly heritable. Also a high and positive correlation was found between number of fruits per plant and yield per plant, while negative correlations with intermediate to high magnitude were found between fruit weight and number of fruits per plant as well as between flowering date and yield per plant. It was suggested that varietal development of this kind of eggplant in the future could be in the form of either pure lines or, more preferably, hybrids.