Diallel analysis as a tool when selecting parents for beans

The success of a breeding programme for autogamous plants depends on the choice of parents capable of producing progeny with the desired characteristics. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine the values of the general and specific combining capabilities of four bean genotypes, for the characteristics: plant height (PH) in cm; height of insertion of the first pod (HIP) in cm; stem diameter (SD) in mm; number of pods per plant (NPP); and number of grains per pod (NGP); in order to assess their potential for use as parents in breeding programmes. Four bean parents (BAF07, BAF09 and IPR Uirapuru of the black commercial group and BAF50 of the carioca commercial group) were hybridized employing a complete diallel in order to obtain the F 1 hybrids and their reciprocals. The performance of the parents, F 1 hybrids and reciprocals was evaluated in the field in an experimental design of randomised blocks with two replications, during the 2009/10 crop season. For diallel analysis the methodology proposed by Griffing (1956) was used: Method I, where n(2) combinations are included. The BAF07 genotype can be used in blocks of crossings when the aim of the programme is to increase the values for PH, HIP, SD and NGP; it was also possible to observe a greater importance of the general combining capacity, by means of the magnitude of the quadratic components, i.e. of the additive effects in the genetic control of characteristics of agronomic importance in the bean.