STUDIES ON GENE EFFECTS FOR OIL AND SOME YIELD ATTRIBUTING TRAITS IN SESAME (Sesamum indicum L.)

Sesame is a highly prized oil crop of India with high quality edible oil. Development of high oil content varieties is one of the most important aims of current sesame programs. The study on Inheritance of oil content, seed yield and other agronomic traits was conducted through combining ability using 8-parental half-diallel cross in sesame. The results revealed contribution of both additive and nonadditive gene effects controlling the expression of characters under consideration. Additive genetic system was more important for capsule length and oil content, while other characters were influenced predominantly by nonadditive gene effects. In general, epistasis was pronounced for all the characters. Among the parents, AT 177 ranked as top general combiner for oil content and other yield attributing traits followed by AT 158 and AT 192. A correspondence between per se performance of parent and combining ability effects was not always observed. Most good specific combiners involved high x low gca parents. Involvement of high gca parents indicates strong tendency of transmitting specific genetic architecture for oil content in sesame and may possibly throw up desirable transgressive segregates in subsequent generations.