Heterosis for growth parameters is an indication of heterosis
for yield as growth and yield parameters are strongly associated
(Jaiprakashnarayan, 2003). Significant and high magnitude of
heterosis over better parent and the commercial check was
observed in the desirable direction for plant height and number
of branches per plant. For number of leaves, internodal length
and number of nodes on the main stem significant and high
magnitude of heterosis was observed in the desirable direction
over better parent, the best parent and the commercial check.
For plant height six crosses showed positively significant
heterosis over better parent and 24 crosses over the
commercial check and the maximum heterosis was observed
in the cross KO-2 × PK (48.20%) over better parent and the
cross KO-6 × PK (56.07%) over the commercial check (Table
1). The parent KO-6 involved in the cross KO-6 × PK showed
positive and significant gca effects (Table 2) and the cross KO-
2 × PK also exhibited positive and significant sca effects (Table
3) for plant height .Heterosis over better parent and the
commercial check was also reported by Thippeswamy, 2001
and Hosamani et al., 2008 for plant height