Repeatability and correlations among peach physical traits

Abstract

Selection fields of fruit crops are commonly installed without statistical design. This impairs the acquisition of trustworthy information and genetic parameters such as heritability. The coefficient of repeatability can be used to guide the selection since it defines the superior limit of heritability and can be estimated without much experimental sophistication. The coefficient of repeatability of fruit characters of peaches was estimated. It was verified that the selection based on samples of nine fruits leads to the accuracy of 0.90 in the evaluations of the permanent phenotypic values, indicating the efficiency of mass selection for length, diameter, and weight of the fruit, weight of the pit, firmness of the pulp and the pulp/pit and length/diameter ratios of the fruit. The coefficients of correlation indicate that the fruit physical traits can be improved by selecting for fruit diameter (highly correlated with fruit weight), low ratio L/D, and high ratio pulp/pit.