Breeding potential of single, double and multiple crosses in commonbean

Abstract

This common bean study was carried out to improve the understanding of the several strategies that canbe used to obtain segregant populations in self-pollinating plant breeding programs. Eight inbred lines werecrossed in a pyramidal form, and four single, two double and one multiple hybrid were obtained. The potentialof the different hybrids was investigated based on the performance of the F2 and F2 plus F3 segregant populations.The potential for obtaining superior inbred lines was estimated by (m + a), which is the average of the F∞ inbredlines, and by the probability of a given population producing inbred lines that outperform the yield of the Pérolacultivar by 20%. It was shown that the use of multiple crosses is not advantageous when breeders have welldefined objectives and experimental conditions to assess and identify the most promising segregant populations.