Heritability Estimates of Morphological Traits in Almond Crosses

The efficiency of cross-breeding programs mainly depends on the choice of the progenitors and the knowledge on the transmission of traits that breeder wants to improve. In the present study heritability rate of 65 traits related to different parts of vegetative, reproductive, nut and kernel in 12 populations (320 progenies) derived from controlled crosses of 13 local and foreign almond genotypes and cultivars were assessed. Results obtained from parents evaluation showed that ‘Shahrood-12’ was the latest blooming while ‘15/5’ and ‘A’genotypes were the earliest blooming than the other parents. Among the 12 studied populations, in total 46 superior progenies were chosen in terms of heritability of evaluated traits with emphasis on flowering time. Heritability of some important traits such as flowering time, leafing date and bearing habit were obtained as 0.70, 0.80 and 0.75 respectively. Also fitted regression line of these traits was significant at 1% probability level. Close relationship between flowering time and leafing date were obtained in evaluated progenies. Heritability of some nut traits such as weight, length, width, softness and hardness and shell thickness were obtained to be 0.77, 0.60, 0.69, 0.73 and 0.60 respectively and the fitted regression lines to these traits were significant at the 1% probability level. Heritability of traits related to almond kernel such as length, width, weight, shape, double kernel percentage and shriveling were estimated 0.75, 0.79, 0.76, 0.96, 0.55 and 0.54, respectively.