Arisara Phudenpa, Sanun Jogloy, Banyong Toomsan, Sopone Wongkaew, Thawan Kesmala, and Aran Patanothai

pp. 317 - 325

Abstract

Broad-sense heritability is useful information for plant breeders to formulate effective breeding
strategies as it provides rough estimates of genetic variability in the breeding materials. The experiment
was conducted under field condition in a farmer’s farm following rice harvest in Kalasin province in the
Northeast, Thailand during January to May 2000. The objective of this study was to estimate broad-sense
heritabilities and correlation coefficients between traits related to N₂-fixation and agronomic traits in the F₂ generation derived from diallel crosses involving 5 parent lines of peanut. Data were recorded for top
dry weight, nodule dry weight, leaf color score, pod weight per plant, seed weight per plant, pod number per plant, seed number per plant, 100-seed weight and shelling percentage. Zero or near zero heritability estimates were found for leaf color score. High heritability estimates were observed for shelling percentage.
Heritability estimates for top dry weight were low to high, ranging from 0 to 0.98. Heritability estimates
for nodule dry weight, pod dry weight, seed dry weight, pod number per plant, seed number per plant and
100 seed weight were low to moderate. Top dry weight was positively correlated with nodule dry weight, leaf
color score, pod dry weight, seed dry weight, pod weight per plant, seed weight per plant and 100-seed weight,
but it had significant negative correlation coefficients with shelling percentage. Pod dry weight, seed dry
weight, pod number per plant and seed number per plant were positively correlated with each other.