HERATIBILITY OF SEVERAL QUANTITATIVE CHARACTERS OF INTEREST IN GILLYFLOWER (MATTHIOLA INCANA) BREEEDING

  • Doina Angela Pui „Babeş-Bolyai” University, Mihail Kogălniceanu Street, Cluj-Napoca
  • M. Ardelean „Babeş-Bolyai” University, Mihail Kogălniceanu Street, Cluj-Napoca
  • Mirela Cordea „Babeş-Bolyai” University, Mihail Kogălniceanu Street, Cluj-Napoca
  • V. Mitre „Babeş-Bolyai” University, Mihail Kogălniceanu Street, Cluj-Napoca
  • Ana Nicoară „Babeş-Bolyai” University, Mihail Kogălniceanu Street, Cluj-Napoca
Keywords: gillyflower, quantitative characters, heritability, breeding

Abstract

Six cultivars of gillyflower, previously tested for their plant homogeneity of the distinctive characters (flower color, height of plant, earliness etc. ) were used in 2003 in a cyclic crossing system with V1 as tester parent. There resulted ten hybrid combinations (direct and reciprocal) each of them containing 40-150 hybrid plants. The F1 hybrids were tested for their main quantitative characters of interest in the phenotypic expression of ornamental value, in 2004-2006. Heritability, both in wide (H) and narrow (h2) sense, was computed for seven quantitative characters by means of ANOVA method (for H) and regression of F1 hybrids to mean of parents. There have been found quite a few quantitative traits (plant height, number of simple flowers/inflorescence, number of composite flowers/inflorescence, the beginning of blooming, persistence of flowering) in which high values of wide sense heritability (H) were accompanied by medium values of narrow sense heritability (h2). It is quite reasonable to expect a high efficiency of phenotypic selection for such traits since additive effects seem to play a major role in their inheritance.