Efficiency of Mass Selection on Improving Characteristics of Native Radish (Raphanus sativus L.)

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Horticultural Research Institute, A.R.C., Egypt

Abstract

This investigation was carried out at Sabahia Horticultural Research Station, Alexandria, during the winter seasons of 2007 till 2010. The genetic materials used in this study were three ecotypes of white balady radish; which were collected from Alexandria, Kafr El-Sheikh and Sohag governorates; to study the efficiency of two cycles of mass selection on the general behavior of some of their important characters. Moreover, some important genetic parameters were calculated for the studied characters; as well as the genotypic correlation coefficients among the studied characters; which would be helpful to plan an appropriate selection program. Wide differences were noticed among and within base populations of the used three balady ecotypes of white radish in most of the studied characters. The coefficients of variation values were higher than 25% in base populations of the three ecotypes for most characters. Mass selection was found to be effective on enhancing the studied character of the three ecotypes of white balady radish. Furthermore, mass selection method appeared also efficient in reducing coefficients of variation and the detected ranges of most of the characters became narrower. Mean squares of genotypes were found highly significant, only, for the three characters number of leaves, leaf shape and hairiness. The genotype × year component of variance did not reach the significance level in all studied traits. The insignificance of this component
indicated that the selected genotypes successes to posses the same general performance in all years of the test. The partitioning of the estimated variances into its their various components revealed that a large portion of variances of most studied traits of used radish ecotypes would be attributed differences in their genotypes. The estimated broad sense heritability values of the various studied characters reflected generally high estimates (> 80%) in most studied traits. Concerning genotypic correlation coefficients among the studied traits of the three radish genotypes, it was found that root weight was positively correlated with all other studied characters, except root shape index. Meanwhile, foliage weight was positively correlated with foliage length, number of leaves and root weight.

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