Studies on Variation and Selection of Potatoes. : I. Genetic Parameters in leaf, Flower and Starch Characters

Abstract

This study has been made over periods of 2 and 3 years using ll8 potato varieties grown at Hokkaido Prefectural Konsen Agricultural Experiment Station. The purpose of the study is to estimate the genetic coefficients of variation, heritabilities, genetic and phenotypic correlation coefficients of the each seven leaf and flower characters and six starch characters (Table 1, Fig. 1). Furthermore, relationships between these characters and tuber yield, starch content and starch yield were studied. The principal results obtained were summarized as follows ; (1) The genetic coefficients of variation were observed to range from 4.8 to 22.3%, 3.7 to 18.3%, and 15.0 to 34.7% for leaf, flower and starch characters, respectively (Table 3, 5, 7). (2) The heritabilities for leaf, flower and starch characters were observed to rang from 44.0 to 75.9%, 54.5 to 85.0%, and 55.2 to 65.2%, respectively. Especialy, the heritabilities of the number of petals, petole index, style length and sepal length were shown to be more than 70%, and hence it may be considered that these characters have high selection efficiency (Table 3, 5, 7).