Combining ability analysis for yield and yield component traits in finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.)

An experiment was conducted to estimate the gca and sca effects for yield and yield attributing traits in finger millet. In the present investigation, the parents were mated in half diallel mating design. The trial was conducted at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore. Anova revealed that there was sufficient variability among genotypes, parents, and hybrids. Parents CO (Ra) 14, TNAU 1039 and CO 9 were found to be good combiners for yield and its attributing traits with highly significant per se performance. The parents with high gca effects were utilized in the identification of superior hybrids with favourable genes for grain yield and its component traits. In case of sca effects, crosses TNAU 1039 x CO (Ra) 14 exhibited higher per se performance and sca effects for yield and its component trait under evaluation. The crosses with high sca effects may be exploited to fix high yield in advanced generations. The sca variances were higher compared to gca variances for all the traits under study except the longest finger length which indicated the predominance of non- additive gene action in the control of these traits.