The objective of this work was to study the main gene actions involved in phenotypic expression of pod quality in a cross between snap beans and common bean. Two segregating populations (F2 and F2:3) and the parental lines were evaluated. The snap bean cultivar Conquista Rasteiro was used as the female parent, and the common bean line H126 as the male parent. Pod length, between-suture width, valve width, pod shape, and percentage of pod fiber were evaluated. Non-additive gene effects were important for all traits evaluated. Even though genetic effects were higher than the environmental ones for pod length, pod shape, and percentage of pod fiber, efficiency of selection in individual plants tended to be low in early segregating generations, as demonstrated by the low narrow-sense heritabilities for most traits, except for pod shape. At family level, genetic effects were higher than the environmental ones for all evaluated traits, and most traits presented high narrow-sense heritabilities, indicating high selection efficiency at family level in early segregating generations for all traits, except for pod length and percentage of fiber.
Phaseolus vulgaris; gene action; heritability; segregating populations
