Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2017) 6(6): 2807-2812 2807 Original Research Article https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2017.606.334 Triple Test Cross Analysis for Yield and Horticultural Traits in Brinjal (Solanum melongena L.) Smita Kumari*, K.S. Chandel and Aanchal Chauhan Department of Vegetable Science and Floriculture, CSKHPKV, Palampur (H.P.), India *Corresponding author ABSTRACT Introduction Brinjal (Solanum melongena L.) is known as eggplant or aubergine (French word) belongs to family Solanaceae and it is also known as queen of vegetable. It is an autogamous crop adapted to wide climatic range and exhibit variation in colour, size and shape of the fruit (Hazra et al., 2011) and one of the most commonly grown vegetables all the year round in the country. India is considered to be the centre of origin of brinjal (Zeven and Zhukovsky 1975) with secondary diversity in China and South East Asia (Nath et al., 1987). It contains enormous genetic variability which coupled with its biological diversity make it suitable for study of genetic principles which are of practical significance to plant breeders. The elucidation of genetic components of variance is an important pre-requisite for efficient management of available genetic variability and formulation of systematic breeding programme. However, the estimation of these components gets significantly biased in presence of epistasis, which leads to erroneous estimation of International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 6 Number 6 (2017) pp. 2807-2812 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com Vegetable breeding generally depends on the nature and genetic components of variation. Thus it is necessary to have reliable estimates of such components in order to formulate an efficient breeding strategy. In the present study, ten diverse inbred lines were crossed to three testers viz., SP, H-8 and their F1 SP x H-8 at the Experimental Farm, Department of Vegetable Science and Floriculture, CSKHPKV, Palampur (H.P.) during kharif, 2015 to assess the nature and magnitude of genetic variability and to understand the association between different horticultural traits. Data were recorded for marketable fruit yield per plant, days to 50 per cent flowering, days to first picking, number of marketable fruits per plant, fruit length and fruit diameter. The parents (lines and testers) and their crosses were evaluated in Randomized Block Design. Analysis of variance revealed significant differences among progenies. All the characters showed significant in total epistasis. Both additive and non-additive interaction i.e., (i) type epistasis was significant for all traits except fruit length and fruit diameter whereas for (j+l) type epistasis was significant for all traits except days to first picking. Degree of dominance was in the range of partial dominance. Correlation coefficient was non-significant for all traits except marketable fruit yield per plant and days to 50% flowering. Heritability (narrow sense) estimates were low to medium. Keywords Brinjal, Triple test cross, Epistasis, Additive and Dominance component. Accepted: 26 May 2017 Available Online: 10 June 2017 Article Info