Repeatability coefficients and number of measurements for evaluating traits in strawberry

Abstract

The objective of this study was to estimate the coefficient of repeatability and the number of measurements required for production and quality variables in a strawberry crop. An experiment was conducted with two strawberry cultivars from two origins grown in four substrate mixtures, totaling 16 treatments, evaluated in a randomized block design with four replications. Mass (MF) and number (NF) of fruits per plant were evaluated as measures of production, and total soluble solids (SST), titratable acidity (AT) and firmness (FIR) of fruits during the crop cycle were evaluated as measures of quality. Subsequently, the repeatability coefficient was estimated by the following methods: analysis of variance (ANOVA), principal component analysis using a correlation matrix (PCcor), principal component analysis using a variance-covariance matrix (PCcov) and structural analysis (SA). The number of measurements was adjusted for each studied variable based on determination coefficients of 0.80, 0.85, 0.90, and 0.95. The repeatability coefficients ranged from low to medium. The ANOVA method gave the lowest r values, while the PCcov method presented the highest values of r. When using the PCcov method, 3.6, 2.9, 6.2, 3.2, and 3.8 measurements were needed to reach 80% confidence for the variables MF, NF, SST, AT, and FIR, respectively, and this increased to 7.3, 14.0, 29.6, 15.4, and 18.1 for 95% confidence in the results for MF, NF, SST, AT, and FIR, respectively.