Heritabilities of Seven Sweet Potato Root Traits1

Abstract

Abstract Forty-five plants of sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam.) taken randomly from the second cycle of a mass-selection population, and 25 open-pollinated progeny from each were used to estimate heritabilities (h2) of 7 root traits: root weight, 0.25 ± 0.13; intercellular space (IS), 0.70 ± 0.14; percent of dry matter (DM), 0.65 ± 0.12; sprouting, 0.39 ± 0.14; flesh oxidation, 0.24 ± 0.13; flesh color, 0.53 ± 0.14; and cortex thickness, 0.25 ± 0.13. IS was distributed normally with mean and mode of about 7%. DM had a bimodal distribution with mean 28.8 and modes of 27 and 31%. At least 2 genetic systems were apparently involved in expression of DM; one was associated with orange flesh and the other, with white flesh. This is the first report of the h2 for IS, DM, and sprouting.