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Correlation and combining abilities of plant height, stem diameter, internode length, flower length, and number of flowers were studied from 15 F₁ crosses made from the partial six-parent diallel crosses in Petunia hybrida. The plant height showed highly positive correlations with stem diameter, internode length, and number of flowers. The mean squares of general combining ability (GCA) and specific combining ability (SCA) were highly significant for all growth and flowering characters. Variance component values of SCA were greater than the values of GCA for all characters, showing preponderance of non-additive gene actions for these characters. The lines of G and C for plant height and A, D, and G for number of flowers showed relatively high GCA effects. Crosses of E×G, A×G, and D×E exhibited high SCA effects on plant height, stem diameter, internode length, peduncle length, and number of flowers. The broad sense heritability was generally high as compared with narrow sense one. Plant height and peduncle length showed high broad and narrow sense heritability.
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