Gene action for oil content and quality in diverse cytoplasmic sources in sunflower under varied moisture environments

Abstract Sunflower breeding aims to developing good heterotic hybrids which can be achieved by tapping combining ability of hybrids belongs to diverse parents. Nine diversified CMS lines along with one maintainer lines were hybridized with four male lines in a line × tester manner thereby, developing a total 40 hybrids. The experimental material was grown over two environments i.e. recommended irrigation and other moisture stress environments continuously for two years 2011 and 2012 in randomized complete block design with three replications at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab, India. The experiment was design to estimate combining ability of parental lines, gene effects and effect of divers CMS sources on oil content and quality traits. It was observed that the non-additive component of genetic variance played major role in inheritance of these traits as recommended by analysis of variance of combining abilities and analysis of genetic variance components. Further supporting this conclusion was the fact that the GCA/SCA ratio for oil content and quality traits observed in F1 generation was less than one under both the environments. These results indicated the preponderance of dominant gene action and the feasibility of hybrid sunflower development. GCA estimates revealed that CMS analogues CMS-XA (Unknown), ARG-2A (H. argophyllus) and PRUN-29A (H. praecox spp. runyonic) were very good combiner for oil content under both the environments. The pollen parents RCR-8297 and P69R were observed as very good combiners for oil content and stearic acid under moisture stress condition. The male parent P100R was recorded very good combiner for oil content under normal environment while, RCR-8297 and P100R were very good combiners for oleic acid under both the environments. A total seven crosses were identified for oil content and eight crosses for oleic acid as having high SCA effects under both the water regimes.