ABSTRACT
The market demand for uniformity and productivity of commercial carrot roots has prioritized hybrid materials instead of open pollinated varieties. In this sense, the objective of this study was to estimate the ability of combining carrot progenitors for the characters root yield and tolerance to leaf blight. The experiments were carried out at Gama-DF, during the 2012-13 and 2013-14 season. Thirty-three carrot hybrids, originated from crosses among three male-sterile populations and 11 male-fertile S2 lines from tropical origin were assessed. At 90 days after sowing, the incidence of leaf blight disease was evaluated in the plots. At 100 days after sowing, the plants were harvested and root yield characters were evaluated. The analysis of variance was performed and the effects of general combining ability (GCA) and specific combining ability (SCA) were estimated. It was verified that both additive and non-additive genes are important to express characters of root yield and leaf blight tolerance. The male-sterile progenitors with higher general combining ability for root yield are the LM-649 and LM-650 lines, and among the male-fertile, the LM-555-2 line is the highest. The best hybrids for root yield and tolerance to leaf blight are LM-649 × LM-555-11-1, LM-650 × LM-555-7-1 and LM-650 × LM-554-8-1.
Key words:
Daucus carota L.; hybrids; partial diallel analysis.
