GENETIC VARIABILITY AND INHERITANCE ESTIMATES OF SOME CHARACTERS IN OKRA IABELMOSCHUS ESCULENTUS (L.) MOENCH]

Abstract

The present investigation was carried out m the Sabahia horticultural Research station, Alexandria.

A 5 x 5 half diallel cross was performed in 1995 summer season, among five S5 lines of okra, to get 10 F1 hybrid combinations. In the summer season of 1996, the F 1 of each of the 10 hybrids was selfed and backcrossed to both parents to get 10 F2 families and 20 backcrosses. In

199and 1999, the six populationsP 1,P2,F ,F2,BC1 andBC2,ofeach cross were grown in a randomized complete block desihrn with three replications. Sixteen characters i.e., days to first flower, height of the first node, early edible yield and number of pods/plant, plant height, number of branches/plant, total edible yield and num her of pods/plant, pod length, pod diameter, shape index, pod weight, spine character, net weight, edible pod dry weight and mucilage content were studied. Gene action, heritability in broad and narrow sense, inbreeding depression and number of gene pairs, in addition to phenotypic expression offive characters (plant height, pod length, pod diameter, spine character and pod color) and correlation coefficient values between the studied characters were evaluated.