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Inheritance of Forage Quality and Its Relationship to Leaf Tensile Strength in Tall Fescue¹

Breeding tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) with improved forage quality is necessary to improve animal performance. Nine clones of tall fescue were randomly chosen from a broad-based population and crossed in all combinations to study the inheritance of leaf tensile strength (LTS), fiber content, in vitro dry matter digestibility (IVDMD), and herbage yield. The leaf tensilmeter was evaluated as a device for screening plants for improved forage quality. The genetic variation was significant among parents for most traits observed at most harvest dates. The total genetic variance component for most traits was large relative to the interaction components. No genetic variation among parents for IVDMD was found for any harvest date. The cross genetic variation was usually highly significant and due mainly to general combining ability suggesting that additive genetic variance was more important than non-additive genetic variance. The highest narrow sense heritability estimates occurred for LTS with values of 78, 71, and 74% for June, August, and October harvests, respectively. Heritability estimates for fiber ranged from medium to high while those for yield ranged from low to medium.

Correlations between LTS and fiber content and IVDMD were low, suggesting that improvement of fiber content and IVDMD in this population of tall fescue by the use of LTS would be difficult. However, large genetic variation does exist in this population for LTS, and it can be utilized in a tall fescue breeding program if a relationship can be found between LTS and animal performance.

Breeeding for improved IVDMD per se in the fall apparently would be difficult since no significant genetic variability was found. Additional plant materials should be collected for the purpose of broadening the genetic base.

Key Words: Festuca arundincea Schreb. • Acid detergent fiber • Neutral detergent fiber • In vitro dry matter digestibility • Forage grass breeding

² Research assistant, associate professor of agronomy, professor of agronomy, SEA, USDA, Univ. of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211.

Received for publication December 22, 1980.