Abstract
A diallel cross design, involving six diploid O-type lines and their cytoplasmic male sterile (CMS) equivalents was used to examine the genetic control of characters determining seed viability and vigor of seed and seedling in sugar beet. Six characters including percentage of germination, seedling establishment, weight of 1000 germs, seedling vigor, speed of germination, and monogermity were analyzed. Additive genetic effects were shown to be highly important for all characters and significant dominance effects were found for the percentage of germination and seedling establishment, weight of 1000 germs, and rate of monogerm seeds produced by multigerm plants. There were significant reciprocal variations for most characters, indicating that maternal effects and differences of self-incompatibility mechanisms may influence the expression of some characteristics related to the amount of viable seeds produced in plant. Variance of genotypes for seedling vigor and speed of germination was nonsignificant, indicating that both characters are mainly affected by environmental factors. The relative importance of heritability estimates and the ratio of GCA, SCA, and environmental variances to phenotypic variances were calculated for all the traits examined. It is suggested that seed traits are as important as root quality traits for the development of sugar beet varieties.
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Sadeghian, S., Khodaii, H. Diallel cross analysis of seed germination traits in sugar beet. Euphytica 103, 259–263 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018365609713
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018365609713