HETEROSIS FOR DRY ROOT YIELD AND ALKALOID CONTENT IN GENOTYPES OF ASHWAGANDHA (WITHANIA SOMNIFERA L. DUNAL)Amit Kumar, Amit Dadheech, Mukesh Kumar Yadav, Heera Lal Barupal, Ravi Kumawat, Bhawna Goswami and Govardhan LalAbstract Increases in root yield and alkaloid content are still desired today. Line breeding was traditionally used to enhance total alkaloid content with the aim of outcrossing inbred lines to develop a synthetic variety. We wanted to see whether and also how much heterosis in ashwagandha could be exploited. We evaluated 15 parental lines, three testers along with 45 corresponding F1 hybrids developed in a line x tester mating design using a randomized block design with one year of growing and three replications per year. We determined the early flowering, plant height, root length and root diameter, number of secondary and tertiary root per plant, dry root yield per plant and total alkaloid content, grain yield per ear and biological yield per. The hybrids L5 x T3, L9 x T3, L14 x T3, L14 x T2 for most of characters including days to 50 per cent flowering, plant height, root length and root diameter, number of secondary and tertiary root per plant, dry root yield per plant and total alkaloid content, grain yield per ear and biological yield per plant identified as economic heterosis on pooled basis. The findings give us hope that better annual varieties will be available soon. |