Genotypic and environmental variation in crop yield. A method of estimating the interdependence of the components of yield

✍ Scribed by R. C. Hardwick; D. J. Andrews

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1980
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 665 KB
• Volume: 29
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0014-2336
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00037265

✦ Synopsis

Because yield components do not behave as independent attributes the conclusions derived from simple yield analyses are of limited value in plant breeding programmes. By calculating a function W of the variances and covariances of the yield components, it is possible to estimate, on a scale from 0 to 1, the degree to which the variations in yield components were independent of one another in any given experiment. By this approach examples of almost complete compensation among the components (W = 0). of mutual independence of the components ( W = 0.5), and of additivity of the components (W = 1.0) have been discovered in original data and in the literature. Reasons, and possible applications for these findings are discussed. Investigations into the sampling properties of W are reported in an appendix.