Genetic Analysis of some Important Seed Yield Related Traits in Kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus L.)

Abstract

Genetic analyses for the days to first flowering, the number of fruits per plant, the number of seeds per fruit and the 1,000 seed-weight were carried out using six-parents half diallel crosses in kenaf to determine the inheritance pattern and genetic behavior of these characters. Hayman’s analysis of variance and components of variations related to gene actions indicated the involvement of both additive and dominance effects for all the traits, but the value of additive (D) and dominance (H1) of (H1/D)½ indicated predominant additive effects for the days to first flowering (0.91) and 1,000 seed-weight (0.81), while there were dominance effects for the number of fruits per plant (28.35) and the number of seeds per fruit (2.58). Variance and covariance graphs revealed a partial dominance for all the traits except the number of seeds per fruit which showed over-dominance. Parents Acc.5030, Acc.4197 and Acc.2922 possessed the most recessive genes, while parents Acc.4659 and Acc.2731 had maximum dominant alleles for all the studied traits. The value of heritability in the narrow sense (h2ns) was comparatively high for the days to first flowering (0.59) and 1,000 seed-weight (0.56), but it was low for the number of seeds per fruit (0.09) and the number of fruits per plant (0.01). Therefore, the improvement of seed yield can be enhanced through pedigree selection considering the desired traits in the early or segregating generation based on appropriate parents in the breeding program.