Vol. 9, Issue 6, Part L (2025)

Inquisition on combining ability in Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) was initiated  with using ten parents and their twenty-five F₁s developed in line x tester fashion at Crop Research Farm Nawabganj, Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture & Technology, Kanpur during Rabi season of 2022-23. The observations were recorded on fourteen quantitative characters. Analysis of variance for combining ability revealed that the mean squares due to both general combining ability and specific combining ability were significant for all traits indicating both additive and non-additive genetic variances played a vital role in inheritance of all these traits. The variability for all the characters studied was highly significant in parents and F₁s. Variation due to parent vs. F₁ also showed highly significant difference for spike length, number of spikelets per spike, plant biomass, number of grains per spike and grain yield per plant. On the basis of GCA effect and per se performance, parents namely K 68 and DBW 187 were observed as good general combiners for grain yield per plant, Harvest index, 1000 Grain weight Number of grains per plant, number of grains per spike, grain weight per spike, plant biomass and number of spikelets per spike. On the basis of SCA effect and per se performance, cross IC 574476/DBW 187 and K 1317/GW 322 was observed as good specific combiners for grain yield, harvest index, 1000 Grain weight, Number of grains per plant, grain weight per spike and Plant biomass.