Vol. 12, Issue 12 (2023)

The present investigation was conducted at experimental research farm during summer-2022 (Crossing) and kharif 2022 (evaluation), with a view to study the gene action, of three crosses (each having P₁, P, F, F2, BC₁ and BC2 generations) in a Randomized block design with two replications. Analysis of variance for yield and yield components showed significant differences among the genotypes which indicated the presence of considerable. Variability in the material under study which means selection can be carried out with those generations. The scaling test exhibited that, there was presence of epistatic gene interaction. The duplicate epistasis were observed in, days to 50 per cent flowering, number of nodes per plant, number of branches per plant, number of fruits per plants and fruit length appeared in all three crosses. For plant height and weight of fruit in the crosses, Parbhani kranti x Varsha Uphar and Arka Abhay x EC-305672 and complementary epistasis for the characters viz., plant height, internodal length and weight of fruit detected duplicate epistasis. This suggests the need of specific breeding procedure such as intermating of most desirable segregants followed by selfing and selecting superior genotypes coupled with progeny testing to exploit the population under study. Both additive and non-additive gene actions were detected in all yield contributing characters. Selection in early generation would be effective, when additive effects are larger than non-additive ones. While if the non-additive portions are larger than additive one, the improvement of the character need intensive selection through later generations.