Quantitative inheritance for fruit traits in inter varietal crosses of okra (Abelmoschus esculentus L. Moench)

Gene effects for important fruit traits of four inter-varietal crosses of okra were estimated by partitioning the means and variances of means of six basic generations from each cross into their genetic components to assess the gene action governing the inheritance of fruit yield and earliness related traits in spring and rainy season. The additive, dominance and digenic non-allelic gene interactions were observed to govern most of the fruit traits. The non-additive gene effects were more pronounced than additive ones for most of the traits in both the environments. The evidence of duplicate type of epistasis has been obtained for all the characters in different crosses in both the seasons. Thus for developing high yielding okra cultivars, recurrent selection in biparental progenies would help in exploiting the duplicate type of non-allelic interactions and allow recombination and concentration of genes having cumulative effects in population.