Estimation of Combining Ability for Oil and Yield-related Traits in Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) by Using Line × Tester Analysis

Sunflower is an important oilseed crop cultivated worldwide because of its importance for oil and food. Sunflower is well suited to our local cropping pattern and contains much edible oil The research was conducted at the University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan to evaluate the combining ability of morphological traits of sunflower. Four lines were used as female and three testers (male) were crossed to make twelve hybrids by using a line × tester mating design. In the next season, the crosses and their parents were evaluated according to their performance for yield and its related traits. The data was taken based on ten morphological and physiological traits. The data of parents and their crosses were evaluated whether the data was significant or non-significant, by performing an analysis of variance test. A54 and A69 both lines and tester A53 are good general combiners and significant SCA effects for most traits observed in their combinations. Plant height and 1000-achene weight have significant SCA effects. Lines contain a very significant role for eight traits, i.e., flower initiation (20.57%), 50% flowering (16.65%), 100% flowering (22.19%), plant height (14.36%), leaf area (79.97%), head diameter (49.87%), seed yield (97.95%) and 1000 achene weight (18.58%) as compared to these testers that showed meager contributions for all traits that revealed minor or no parental effect for all parameters.