Genetics of Yield and Yield Traits of Pigeonpea (Cajanus Cajan L.)

This work was aimed to study the Genetics of yield and yield traits involving some thermo-sensitive lines with objective to analyse the gene effects governing yield and yield traits through generation means analysis,study the combining ability variance and effects for certain yield traits, estimate the extent of heterosis & inbreeding depression,determine the association among yield and yield traits and decipher the genetics of tolerance to thermo-sensitivity in pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan L. Millsp.). The estimates of six parameter model revealed that both additive and dominant gene effects were important in all the crosses for almost all the traits. Genetic component of variances revealed prevalence of dominance gene effect for the expression of all the traits except for days to maturity pod length and seeds per pod. More than 200 per cent significant economic heterosis were revealed in few crosses. In all the three sets of materials (parents, F1s and F2s) only pods per plant was strongly associated with yield per plant. The inheritance of tolerance to thermo-sensitivity was governed by single dominant gene.