Evaluation of Variance Components and Genetic Parameters in F1 Progenies of Coffea canephora Pierre x C. congensis Froehner

Abstract

The diploid species Coffea congensis is of interest in improving the organoleptic quality of                        C. canephora. F1 crosses of C. canephora x C. congensis named Congusta in 3 x 5 factorial design have been carried out. The work aimed to assess the genetic parameters in the hybrids in order to integrate them into the selection schemes under way in Côte d'Ivoire.  The experimental design was a randomized complete block design. Each cross was represented by a minimum of 29 plants and a maximum of 55 plants. The spacing used was 3 x 1.5 m. Male genotypes C. congensis brought little improvement in offspring regardless of their insignificant additive gene effect in the hybrids. Low heritabilities were found for vegetative vigor traits DICO, GAT and NPLA ranging from 0.13 to 0.23 in the narrow sense and from 0.18 to 0.32 in the broad sense. For production, the narrow sense heritabilities were stable during the first three years of harvest with values ​​between 0.23 and 0.25 whereas the broad sense heritability was irregular. The estimation GCA and SCA showed that all the traits except RCAR had ratio between both effects above 1. The study of correlations between traits showed insignificant correlations between production and vegetative traits, with coefficients below 0.30. However, The selection of 83 high-producing trees from 14 out of 15 studied families make it possible to create good vegetative trees linked to high yield.