Assessment of heritability and identification of suitable hybrids for late sowing in sugar beet

In order to assess the heritability of short vegetation period (early maturity) of sugar beet hybrids, an experiment was carried out in randomized complete block (RCB) design with 4 replications in Abdolrasoul Motahari Agricaltural Research Station of Sugar Beet Seed Institute, Karaj, Iran in 2009. In this research, the heredity of the traits in testcrosses derived from crosses of 18 half sib families with a male sterile line accompanied by a short vegetation period check variety was evaluated under late sowing condition (about late June). ANOVA results showed that there were no significant differences among the testcrosses for most of the traits- Means comparison showed that the hybrids 3, 9, and 16 had slight difference with the check variety for most traits. The testcross 3 was considered suitable for short growth period which was comparable with the commercial check variety. For morphological traits (such as leaf number and crown height) and some impurity traits (such as sodium and extraction coefficient of sugar), narrow- sense heritability was high. Therefore, there is still possibility to improve the above- mentioned traits with respect to the short vegetation period in the half- sib families. For root yield, sugar yield, and white sugar yield, the heritability was about zero. Root yield had significant positive correlations with sugar yield, white sugar yield, root diameter, and crown height and significant negative correlation with sugar content.