Meghalaya Local: A Natural CMS based hybrid of cauliflower grown in Meghalaya

VK Verma, AK Jha and BK Singh

Vegetable Newsletter 1 (1): 6, 2014

E-mail: bksinghkushinagar@yahoo.co.in

Meghalaya Local a long duration high yielding local cultivar of cauliflower is widely grown by the farmers in the East Khasi Kills, West Khasi Hills, Jaintia Hills and part of Ribhoi district in Meghalaya. Being a cross pollinated crop heterosis breeding is very popular in this crop. To produce the quality hybrid seed, the uses of male sterile line is very important. Two type of male sterile lines i.e. MS-I (with non-viable pollen) and MS-II (without stamen) were identified and tested from the local collection (Table 1).

Table 1. Yield and related traits of CMS lines

Traits	MS-I	MS-II
Days to curd initiation	115.3	117.0
Days to curd maturity	140.0	148.0
No. of leaves	23.7	26.0
Leaf weight (kg)	1.30	1.50
Leaf length (cm)	53.8	55.0
Leaf dia (cm)	25.0	28.2
Stalk wt.(g)	12.1	11.6
Marketable curd wt. (kg)	0.920	1.100
Gross plant weight (kg)	2.290	2.670
Harvest index (%)	40	41