Paper Title
Study of Heterotic Effects Relative to Combing Abilities of Parents in Upland Cotton (G. Hirsutum L.)

Abstract
The experiment was aimed to study the heterotic effects of hybrid combinations produced by diallel mating, relative to the general combining abilities of parents. Total 64 hybrid combination with eight parental genotypes using full diallel were tested. These fifty-six F1 hybrids along with their eight parental combinations were grown during kharif-2017. Genotypes showed significant (p≤0.01) differences for mean squares values for all the traits under study. F-2228, F-2164 and LH-2108 were the parents with best general combining abilities. The best F1 hybrids such as F-1378 x F-2164, RST-9 x F-2164 and RS-810 x LH-2076 from straight crosses and reciprocal hybrids like LH-2076 x RST-9, LH-2108 x F-2228 and LH-2076 x RS-2013 produced high heterosis for seed cotton yield. Among all the traits under study the maximum heterosis was received for seed cotton yield with a max gain if 35.4% in straight crosses and 47% in case of reciprocal crosses. Keywords - Heterosis, Specific combining ability, Seed cotton yield, Gossypium hirsutum L.