Vol. 8, Issue 12, Part D (2024)

The present investigation entitled “Combining ability studies in cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.)” was carried out at All India Coordinated Research Project on Vegetable Crops, Department of Horticulture, Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth, Rahuri. The study was undertaken on 45 crosses made by 10 x 10 half diallel method and their parents of cucumber along with two commercial hybrids namely Gypsy and Chitra over two growing seasons i.e. kharif 2022 and summer 2023. Study explores the combining ability for various important quantitative traits in cucumber viz., length of vine (m), Number of nodes per vine, days to 1st female flower, number of fruits/vine, fruit length (cm) fruit diameter (cm), weight of fruit (g), yield/vine (kg), yield/plot (kg) and yield/hectare (t) etc. The F1 hybrids viz. P₁ x P9 (Cucumber-1 x Cucumber-9), P₂ x P3 (Cucumber-2 x Cucumber-3), P₄ x P₈ (Cucumber-4 x Cucumber-8), P4 x P₁₀ (Cucumber-4 x Cucumber-10), P5 x P7 (Cucumber-5 x Cucumber-7), and P5 x P9 (Cucumber-5 x Cucumber-9) showed best per se performance and estimates of combining ability (Positive as well as negative) for earliness, yield and yield attributing characters. Persent study displayed direct relationship between per se performance and combining ability of hybrids for several traits.