Annual Research & Review in Biology

Information regarding the nature of gene action controlling the yield and yield contributing characters are essential for implementing good breeding program. With this background, a study was conducted to understand the gene action and variance of lines and testers for seedling traits in mulberry. The percent contribution of testers, lines and their interaction to total variance for all the traits clearly revealed that contribution of lines towards total variance was higher than males for all characters. The variance due to lines (females) was significant for germination percentage, seedling height at 60, 90^th DAS, number of branches, intermodal distance, but non- significant for the left-over characters studied. The variance due to Testers (males) was significant for Germination percentage, intermodal distance but non-significant for other characters studied. The line × tester interaction variance was very much significant for germination percentage, seedling height at 90^th DAS, average leaf weight (g), Leaf area (cm²) but non- significant for plant height at 60, 120^th DAS, number of branches, intermodal distance (cm). Variance due to crosses was exceedingly significant for all characters under study except intermodal distance in the present experiment, an effort was made to know the information on the magnitude of GCA, SCA variance and nature of gene action for the trait as a whole. In this experiment also, non-additive genetic component was the major part of genetic variance for most of the growth parameters.