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Published in Crop Sci 8:5-11 (1968)
© 1968 Crop Science Society of America
677 S. Segoe Rd., Madison, WI 53711 USA
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Inheritance of Soybean Seed Quality I. Heritability of Laboratory Germination and Field Emergence1

D. E. Green and E. L. Pinnell2

Individual plants of parental, F1 and F2 populations, and F3 progenies of soybeans were evaluated for seed quality as measured by seedling emergence percentage in the field and by six determinations made in a standard laboratory test. The laboratory determinations were percent normal seedlings plus hard seed, normal seedlings at 5 days, total normal seedlings, abnormal seedlings, decayed or dead seed, and hard seed. Five parental populations consisted of two commercial varieties, Chippewa and Harosoy 63, and three Japanese strains, Wasedaizu No. 1 (PI261469), Matsuura (PI200499), and Kimusume (PI229336). Six F1 and six segregating (F2 and F3) populations were produced from crosses of each Japanese strain as female parent with each of the commercial varieties.

Estimates of broad sense heritability for the field emergence and laboratory germination characters were generally low positive or negative values because of high environmental variances in parents and F1's. Narrow sense heritabilities ranged from 3 to 29% for field emergence, from 2 to 60% for the three determinations of normal seedlings in laboratory germination tests, and from 31 to 71% for hard seed. Fa population means for the seed quality characters were usually equal to or higher than the mid-parent values. In each cross 10 to 20% of the F3 families exceeded the high parent for field emergence. Thus, improvement in this character from selection would seem easy, in spite of the low calculated heritabilities, if selection pressure is applied on F3 to Fn families rather than on single plants and if some replication is used in producing family seed for testing.

Percentages of normal seedlings plus hard seed, normal seedlings at 5 days, and total normal seedlings were about equally well correlated with percentages of normal seedlings in field emergence tests. Abnormal seedling and hard seed percentage in laboratory tests were not as closely associated with field emergence.

1 Contribution from the Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station. Journal Series Number 4077. Approved by Director. Contains part of a thesis submitted by the senior author to the University of Missouri in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree. The author is deeply grateful to the late Dr. L. F. Williams, formerly Research Agronomist, Crops Research Division, ARS, USDA, University of Missouri, for his advice during these investigations.

2 Former Instructor (now Associate Professor, Department of Agronomy, Iowa State University of Science and Technology) and Professor and Chairman (deceased), Department of Field Crops, University of Missouri.

Received for publication July 1, 1967.




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