Performance of agronomic traits in a soybean F1 diallel system
Fábio Pandini, Natal Antonio Vello and Ângela Celis de Almeida Lopes
The objectives of this research were: a) evaluate heterosis for agronomic traits; b) identify associations among the traits; c) estimate genetic divergence among parents and verify its predictive value of hybrid performance. A 10 x 10 diallel experiment was carried out at two localities. Number of days to flowering (NDF), plant height at flowering (APF), number of days to maturity (NDM), plant height at maturity (APM), oil content (%OL), one-hundred seed weight (PCS), agronomic value (VA) and seed yield (PG) were evaluated. Genotype x locality interaction influenced the analysis; varieties and heterosis effects were significant for most traits. Positive values of heterosis were found for most traits, especially PG. Heterosis for NDF was for earliness. %OL showed to be controlled essentially by additive genes. VA can be used for indirect selection for PG. Parental mean predicted hybrid performance better than Mahalanobis’ distance (D2); however, for some traits, this predicting ability was not sufficiently accurate.