Diallel Analysis of Cowpea Cultivar Ife Brown and its Mutants

Abstract

The present investigation of using half diallel analysis in Cowpea cultivar Ife Brown and its three mutants was conducted at Research plot of Department of Agricultural Technology, Federal College of Forestry, Ibadan, Nigeria during the rainy season of 2017. Four parents were used in this study consisting of three (3) mutants (Ife BPC, Ife Brown Yellow, Ife Brown Crinkled) and one (1) putative parent (Ife Brown) that were derived from the Department of Crop Protection and Environmental Biology, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. The present study involves four parents and their seven resultant crosses were grown in a completely Randomized Design with five replications. Analysis of variance for general and specific combining ability(GCA and SCA) revealed that only SCA variances were significant for all the characters. Whereas, comparison of the error mean square of GCA in days to flowering, 100 seed weight and seed yield/plant was higher than the error mean square of SCA thus implying that additive gene action played a more important role in the inheritance of these traits than the non-additive (dominance and epistasis) gene action. Among the parents Ife BPC was observed to be the best general combiner for days to flowering and seed yield/plant. Among the crosses the crosses involving Ife Brown Yellow with Ife Brown in pod length and number of seeds/pod while with Ife Brown Crinkled for days to flowering were recorded. It is evident from present investigation that the hybrid combinations exhibited the high per se performance and sca effect for seed yield per plant and highly promising even in respect of other characters could be advanced by selecting desirable segregants and recombinants in each generation for funneling the new genotype or for using further advanced breeding programme. The present study based on two biometrical analysis (combining ability and genetic components of variances) revealed that the additive and non-additive were involved with preponderance of non-additive gene effects in the inheritance of seed yield and its attributes. It is, therefore, suggested that biparental mating, intermatting of elite segregants and selection at later generations should be followed which meets the requirement of utilizing both types of gene actions.