Vol. 11, Issue 11 (2022)

The present investigation was focused on studying combining ability for fibre quality traits designed among 15 parents and 56 crosses developed through line x tester method. The analysis of variance indicated substantial variability among the experimental material for fibre quality traits. All the characters were predominantly controlled by non-additive gene action except uniformity ratio. Line NH-615 recorded high significant GCA effects for most of the traits viz., ginning outturn, upper half mean length, micronaire value, fibre strength and uniformity ratio. The line NH-635 considered as a good combiner for upper half mean length and fibre strength as it had significant positive value. Among the testers, barbadense tester, RHCB-011 and RHCB-1014 obtained high GCA effect for fibre characters while hirsutum tester, PH-1009 and AC-738 observed significance GCA effects for ginning outturn. The barbadense cross NH-545 x RHCB-1014 recorded highest SCA effects for the traits viz., ginning outturn, micronaire value and fibre strength and were turned out to be best specific combiner while hirsutum cross NH-615 x AKH-8828 showed high SCA effects for the traits viz., ginning outturn, upper half mean length and fibre strength NH-545 x RHCB-1014, NH-545 x RHCB-011 and NH-615 x AKH-8828 were identified as the best hybrids well suited for exploitation through heterosis breeding with regard to per se and SCA effects of studied characters.