Vol. 9, Issue 1, Part L (2025)

The Guava (Psidium guajava L.), native to tropical America is a member of the family Myrtaceae. One of the normal methods of crop improvement in guava is through exploitation of hybrid vigour. This investigation was carried out at Horticultural Research Centre, Pattharchatta, Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand during the year 2019-20. A total of 15 hybrids were developed by crossing 10 parents. Hybrids were evaluated along with their parents for morphological parameters. Hissar Safeda × Lalit, Hissar Surkha × Local Germplasm, One Kg × Local Germplasm, Red Flesh × Local Germplasm had positive heterobeltiosis and positive average heterosis for all leaf parameters except for length to width ratio of leaves. Hissar Safeda × Lalit and Hissar Surkha × Local Germplasm had positive heterobeltiosis for all plant parameters except for internodal length. Sangareddy × Pant Prabhat had positive heterobeltiosis for all plant parameters. Hissar Surkha × Local Germplasm, Hissar Safeda × Pant Prabhat, Sangareddy × Pant Prabhat had positive average heterosis for all the plant parameters while Hissar Safeda × Lalit and Red Flesh × Local Germplasm had positive average heterosis for all plant parameters except for internodal length. The magnitude of both average heterosis and heterobeltiosis was low to moderate in different F₁ hybrids of guava. Hissar Safeda × Pant Prabhat is the only hybrid amongst all 15 hybrids which showed both positive heterobeltiosis and average heterosis for all the leaf and plant parameters. This indicates that this hybrid is promising in terms of the plant and leaf parameters because of the heterotic expression. Further, this hybrid may show faster and better growth and early fruiting along with better quality of fruits. The identified hybrid namely Hissar Safeda × Pant Prabhat may have better combination of gene from both the elite parents and further assume that this hybrid may help in increasing production and productivity of guava with better quality in future.