Field experiments were conducted in 1993 and 1994 in Eldorado do Sul, RS aiming to increment the efficiency of artificial selection in oat for the adaptative traits heading date and plantheight. The heritability (h²) was estimated for 19 segregating populations conducted by the pedigree method and using linear regression as proposed by LUSH (1940). Measurements were taken weekly for heading date from 10 plants in each F3 segregant population during five subsequent weeks in 1993. Plant height was mesured 15 days after anthesis. In 1994, the F4 populations were measured for plant height and heading date. Different h² values were obtained for each trait from the different segregating populations. The heritability values were from 0.19 to 0.59 for heading date and from 0.43 to 0.92 for plant height. The high h² estimates as obtained for these two adaptative traits indicate that artificial selection can be succefully done in early generations.
oat; heritability; genetic gain
