RESEARCH ON THE GENETIC VARIABILITY OF CHARACTERISTICS IN HYBRID POPULATIONS OF HAZELNUT

The breeding program for hazelnut cultivars carried out at the SCDP Vâlcea from 1985 to 2008 led to the increase of genetic variability based on crossing and the release of four new hazelnut cultivars (two for fresh consumption: ‘Cozia’ and ‘Uriaşe de Vâlcea’, and two for the industry: ‘Romavel’ and ‘Arutela’). The number of hybrid crosses (60) and the hybrids obtained (more than 7,500) are characterized by the genetic variability of characteristics like: fruit size index, fruit weight, thickness of the shell and kernel percentage.
Depending on the hybrid crosses, these characteristics are variable.
The analysis of variance and heritability coefficients of fruit weight, thickness of the shell and kernel percentage emphasize the fact that phenotype variation, genotype variation, environmental variance and additive variance and the broad-sense (H2) heritability coefficients, are much influenced by the parents and hybrid combination.
For the characteristics analyzed, a strong hereditary determinism is found.
The inheritance of these characteristics is different from one parent to another, the most interesting results being obtained when ‘TGDL’, ‘Ennis’ and ‘Vâlcea 22’ were used as parents in crosses.

VII International Congress on Hazelnut

I. Botu, E. Turcu, M. Botu, S. Preda, A. Vicol

Corylus avellana, heritability, breeding

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2009.845.18