The demand for foods with better quality and nutritional value, propitiated to the oats to be an important culture for human and animal feeding. Traits that check the quality of the grain, as the percentage of caryopsis, has been receiving larger attention in the oat breeding programs. The objective of the present work was to determine the inheritance of number of genes, gene action and the heritability of the trait percentage of caryopsis. The experiment was made in the years of 1999 and 2000 in the Federal University of Pelotas - UFPel - Brazil. Four cultivar were used to do the crossings and to obtain the generation F1. A new sowing in greenhouse (january/2000) was done with the parents and F1 to produce the first backcrosses generation. The seeds produced by self-polinization of plants F1, originated the generation F2. The parents (P1 and P2) and the generations F1, F2, BC1F1 and BC2F1, were sowed separately in the field in june/2000. The six generations obtained were driven and in each generation, a sample of 20 seeds of each panicle was selected, weighted and husked to determine the percentage of caryopsis. The crosses CTC 5 × OR 2 and UPF 7 × UFRGS 19 evidenced the largest phenotypic and genetics variances propitiating high values of heritability in these crossings. The results indicated that the aditive is the most important in the control of the trait. The observation of transgressive segregation confirms the idea of different genes with the manifestation of 1 to 3 genes according to the crosses. These results indicate that the selection for superior individuals can be done in early generations.
selection; quality of the grain; industrial yield; heritability; number of genes
