PREDICTING PROGENY VARIANCE FROM PARENTAL DIVERGENCE IN HARD RED SPRING WHEAT

Selection of parents is an important first step in any breeding progra m, The ability to assess accurately genetic differences between parent s and subsequently to predict progeny performance would enhance the ef ficiency of breeding programs, This study examined the association bet ween genetic similarity (GS) based on coefficient of parentage (COP) a nd molecular marker data for 10 hard red spring wheats (Triticum aesti vum L,), In addition, we assessed the value of parental diversity base d on COP, and molecular marker data, and combinations of them, to pred ict progeny genetic variance for 12 crosses of hard red spring wheat, Coefficient of parentage was computed for all pair-wise combinations o f the 10 parents, Parents were assayed with 205 sequence-tagged sites (STS) polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primer sets and 14 arbitrarily c hosen selective amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) primer c ombinations, Fifty random progeny lines from each of 12 crosses among the 10 parents were grown in three field environments. Genetic varianc e estimates were obtained for nine traits, and an overall variance was obtained as the sum of single trait variance components from standard ized data, Genetic similarities estimated from COP, STS-PCR primer set s, and AFLP primer combinations were interrelated, Genetic distance co mputed from COP, STS-PCR primer sets, AFLP primer combinations, or com binations of them was not a strong predictor of progeny genetic varian ce or number of transgressive segregates for single traits. However, s ignificant correlations were obtained between COP and STS-PCR-based ge netic distance and overall variance.