Quantitative inheritance for fruit traits in inter varietal crosses of okra (Abelmoschus esculentus L. Moench)

Gene effects for important fruit traits of four inter-varietal crosses of okra were estimated by partitioning the means and variances of means of sixbasic generations from each cross into their genetic components to assess the gene action governing the inheritance of fruit yield and earlinessrelated traits in spring and rainy season. The additive, dominance and digenic non-allelic gene interactions were observed to govern most of thefruit traits. The non-additive gene effects were more pronounced than additive ones for most of the traits in both the environments. The evidenceof duplicate type of epistasis has been obtained for all the characters in different crosses in both the seasons. Thus for developing high yieldingokra cultivars, recurrent selection in biparental progenies would help in exploiting the duplicate type of non-allelic interactions and allowrecombination and concentration of genes having cumulative effects in population.