INHERITANCE STUDIES OF SOME ECONOMIC CHARACTERS IN OKRA (Abelmoschus esculentus (L.) Moench)

Abstract

The inheritance of number of pods per plant, number of days to flowering and plant height in okra was investigated. Two okra cultivars, namely ‘Kosti’ and the Indian cultivar ‘Pusa Sawani’ were used in this study. The two parents were selfed for three successive generations to fix the characters under study. Crosses were made between the two parents, and reciprocal F1’s, F2’s and all possible backcrosses were derived from the initial crosses. The experiment was carried out at Shambat, Sudan in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Gene effects, heritability in broad and narrow sense, number of effective factors and genetic advance were determined. No reciprocal differences were found between F1 and F2 generation for all the characters studied. Three parameter additive-dominance model utilizing generation means was used to estimate gene effects. The results indicated that most of the genetic variance was accounted for by additive and dominance gene effects, with evidence of epistasis. High genetic variability, high heritability values and genetic gains support the above conclusions regarding the inheritance of these characters.