Oil Content Traits Research Articles

Combining Ability, Heritability, and Heterosis for Seed Weight and Oil Content Traits of Castor Bean (Ricinus communis L.)

Hybridization is an important evolutionary force, and heterosis describes the phenomenon where hybrids exhibit superior traits compared to their parents. This study aimed to evaluate the one-hundred-seed weight and fatty acid content in F1 generations, investigating the effects of different parental crosses using a 9 × 3 incomplete diallel design (NCII). One of the challenges faced in this study was the complexity of accurately determining the influence of both genetic and environmental factors on trait inheritance. A total of 36 F1 crosses were analyzed for general combining ability (GCA), specific combining ability (SCA), and heritability. The results showed that the level of each index in F1 is closely related to its parents. Significant differences in GCA and SCA were observed among parental traits in most crosses. The ratio of GCA to SCA ranged from 0 to 3, indicating the pivotal role of SCA over GCA in castor breeding efforts. High narrow-sense heritability was recorded in palmitic acid (30.98%), oleic acid (28.68%), and arachidonic acid (21.34%), suggesting that these traits are predominantly under the control of additive gene action, and hence these characters can be improved by selection. Additionally, heterosis exhibited diverse patterns across traits. Based on the evaluated combining ability, heritability, and heterosis, the inbred lines CSR181 and 20111149 were recommended for castor crossbreeding due to their potential to yield progeny with optimal oil-related traits. This research contributes valuable knowledge to the field of castor breeding, providing a foundation for developing superior castor cultivars.

Mapping and identification of QTLs for seed fatty acids in soybean (Glycine max L.)

Soybean is one of the world's most important sources of vegetable oil. The oil content and fatty acid ratio have attracted significant attention due to their impact on the shelf-life of soybean oil products and the consumers' health. In this study, the high-density genetic map derived from Guizao 1 and Brazil 13 was utilised to analyse the quantitative trait loci of palmitic acid (PA), stearic acid (SA), oleic acid (OA), linoleic acid (LA), linolenic acid (LNA) and oil content. A total of 54 stable QTLs were detected in genetic map linkage analysis, which shared six bin intervals. Among them, the bin interval on chromosome 13 (bin106-bin118 and bin123-bin125) was detected as stable QTLs in multiple environments, linked to OA, LA, and LNA. Eight differentially expressed genes (DEGs) within these QTLs interval were determined as candidate genes according to the joint investigation of parental resequencing, bioinformatics and RNA sequencing data. All these results will be conducive to breeding soybean with the ideal fatty acid ratio for food, and provide the genetic information basis for mining genes related to fatty acid and oil content traits in soybean.

Genetic divergence analysis in Taramira (Eruca sativa Mill.) under different environment conditions with special reference to principal component analysis

The field experiment was conducted to identify the principal component among ten morphological one (biochemical) oil content traits of thirty germplasm lines from the All India coordinate research project oilseeds (Taramira) in a randomize block design (RBD) with three replications in each of the test conditions, which were generated using 3 separate sowing dates with fifteen days interval from October 2nd week to November 3rd week (15th October, 30th October & 15th November 2018-19). First three principal components contributed 76.8% proportion of variation with an eigen value more than one (1.329). The largest percent contribution (30.11) to overall genetic divergence was shown by siliqua per plant followed by test weight, number of primary & secondary branches per plant & seed yield per plant. The genotypes were divided into nine groups, with Cluster II having the most genotypes (12), followed by Cluster I with five genotypes. Based on mean value of seed yield, oil content & cluster analysis, eight germplasms with cross combination viz., RTM-1806 X (RTM-314, RTM-1351, RTM-1805, RTM-1810, RTM-1800, RTM-1791, RTM-1815) & RTM-1804 X (RTM-314, RTM-1351) were identified as high yielding which can be widely utilized as a parents in hybridization programme for the development of 9 new diverse varieties/ hybrids for enhanced seed yield as well as oil content.

Development and application of novel InDel markers in flax (Linum usitatissimum L.) through whole-genome re-sequencing

Flax is an important oil and fibre crop grown in Northern Europe, Canada, India, and China. The development of molecular markers has accelerated the process of flax molecular breeding and has improved yield and quality. Presently, simple sequence repeat (SSR) and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers in the whole genome have been developed for flax. However, the development of flax insertion/deletion (InDel) markers have not been reported. A total of 17,110 InDel markers were identified by comparing whole-genome re-sequencing data of two accessions (87-3 and 84-3) with the flax reference genome. The length of InDels ranged from 1 to 277 bp, with 1–15 bp accounting for the highest rate (95.55%). The most common InDels were in the form of a single nucleotide (8840), dinucleotide (3700), and trinucleotide (1349), and Ch2 (1505) showed the highest number of InDels among flax chromosomes, while Ch10 (913) presented with the lowest number. From 17,110 InDel markers, 90 primers that were evenly distributed in the flax genome were selected. Thirty-two pairs of polymorphic primers were detected in two flax accessions, and the polymorphism rate was 40.70%. Furthermore, genetic diversity analysis, population structure and principal component analysis (PCA) divided 69 flax accessions into two categories, namely oilseed flax and fibre flax using thirty-two pairs of polymorphic primers. Additionally, correlation analysis showed that InDel-26 and InDel-81 were associated with oil content traits, and two candidate genes (lus10031535 and lus10025284) tightly linked to InDel-26 and InDel-81, might be involved in flax lipid biosynthesis and lipid metabolism. This study is the first to develop InDel markers based on re-sequencing in flax and clustered the accessions into two well-separated groups for oil and fibre. The results demonstrated that InDel markers developed herein could be used for flax germplasm identification, genetic diversity analysis, and molecular marker-assisted breeding.

GENOTYPIC VARIANCE AND SELECTION CRITERIA IN GROUNDNUT (ARACHISHYPOGAEAL.) BASED ON OIL QUALITY AND AGRONOMIC TRAITS

Variability gives room for recombination which is important for any crop improvement program. Based on this contextual, this work was conducted to evaluate genetic variability among groundnut germplasm and establish relationships between oil quality and agronomic traits using multivariate analysis. To achieve this objective, fifteen groundnut genotypes were evaluated in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Data were collected on oil and yield quality traits. The estimates of genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) and phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) were high for number of pods and number of seeds per plant, carbohydrate and protein. Broad sense heritability estimates for agronomic and oil content traits ranged from 49.57% - 99.06% while the genetic advance expressed as percentage of mean estimates ranged from 17.73% -114.38%. The evaluated genotypes were clustered into four main groups based on oil and yield quality traits using UPGMA dendrogram. Hence, hybridization of group II with either group I, III or IV could be used to achieve higher vigor or heterosis among the genotypes. The number of pods per plant showed a significant correlation with pod weight per plant (r =0.79) and the number of seeds (0.99). However, most of the oil content traits recorded a non-significant negative correlation. It was concluded that number of pods, seeds per plant, and fat content might be the major agronomic and oil quality traits as selection criteria for improving groundnut genotypes. Also, this assessment could be used in development of reliable selection criteria for important agronomic traits in groundnut

Transcriptome Profile Analysis of Arabidopsis Reveals the Drought Stress-Induced Long Non-coding RNAs Associated With Photosynthesis, Chlorophyll Synthesis, Fatty Acid Synthesis and Degradation.

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play an important role in the response of plants to drought stress. The previous studies have reported that overexpression of LEA3 and VOC could enhance drought tolerance and improve the oil content in Brassica napus and Arabidopsis thaliana, and most of the efforts have been invested in the gene function analysis, there is little understanding of how genes that involved in these important pathways are regulated. In the present study, the transcriptomic results of LEA3 and VOC over-expressed (OE) lines were compared with the RNAi lines, mutant lines and control lines under long-term and short-term drought treatment, a series of differentially expressed lncRNAs were identified, and their regulation patterns in mRNA were also investigated in above mentioned materials. The regulation of the target genes of differentially expressed lncRNAs on plant biological functions was studied. It was revealed that the mutant lines had less drought-response related lncRNAs than that of the OE lines. Functional analysis demonstrated that multiple genes were involved in the carbon-fixing and chlorophyll metabolism, such as CDR1, CHLM, and CH1, were regulated by the upregulated lncRNA in OE lines. In LEA-OE, AT4G13180 that promotes the fatty acid synthesis was regulated by five lncRNAs that were upregulated under both long-term and short-term drought treatments. The key genes, including of SHM1, GOX2, and GS2, in the methylglyoxal synthesis pathway were all regulated by a number of down-regulated lncRNAs in OE lines, thereby reducing the content of such harmful compounds produced under stress in plants. This study identified a series of lncRNAs related to the pathways that affect photosynthesis, chlorophyll synthesis, fatty acid synthesis, degradation, and other important effects on drought resistance and oil content. The present study provided a series of lncRNAs for further improvement of crop varieties, especially drought resistant and oil content traits.

Variability and relationships between characters of physic nut (Jatropha curcas L.) in Burkina Faso

Jatropha curcas is a highly promising species for biodiesel production in Burkina Faso and other countries in the tropics. It is rustic, grows in warm regions and is easily cultivated. These characteristics and high-quality oil yields from the seeds have made it a priority for biodiesel programs. Consequently, this plant merits genetic investigations aimed at improving yields. The present study was conducted to determine the extent of genetic variability and relationships among 30 accessions from Burkina Faso using 7 qualitative characters and 20 quantitative characters. For most of the traits, there were highly significant differences among the accessions. A positive and significant correlation between the 100-seed weight trait and the oil content trait was observed. The oil content trait is significantly and positively influenced by growth traits such as plant height and crown diameter. Based on the petiole base pigmentation, three morphotypes were identified: green morphotype, purple morphotype and brown morphotype. The green morphotype was characterized by very high oil content and high 100-seed weight while the brown morphotype presents low oil content and low 100-seed weight. The purple morphotype registered a high oil content and medium 100-seed weight. These results are important for the continuity of breeding programs, aimed at obtaining cultivars with high grain yield and high oil content in seeds.

Effect of recurrent mutagenesis on some induced genotypes in safflower (Carthamus tinctorious L.)

Mutation breeding is a tool to induce new genetic variation for improving agronomical important traits. Thus, an investigation was carried out during two successive growing winter seasons 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 on safflower plants, at the Experimental and Research Farm, Faculty of Agriculture, Al-Azhar University, Assiut, Egypt. Three mutagen treatments i.e., dimethyl sulfoxide, electric shock and gamma rays, were used to isolate the desirable mutants in M4 and M5 generations of thirty three safflower genotypes. Three mutagen treatments were used, such as; the chemical mutation mutagen was more effective than the two other mutagens to induce mutant genotypes. On the other hand, some mutant progenies were derived from gamma rays treatment with dose 20 kr which was more effective mutagen for induction of stable promising mutants in safflower, according to final results of M5 generation, particularly high yielding ability trait, softness and earliness as compared to untreated plants. Concerning the important traits, the results showed that the earliest progenies for flowering date were 11 gave 119 days while, 9 gave 120 days with the h1 treatment and rad. in M5 generation. Also, the results showed that two mutated progenies 9 and 12 gave the highest seed yield/plant, 355.64 and 317.67 gm respectively from h3 treatment, one progeny 13 gave 382.90 gm from t1 treatment. The seed oil content trait, showed that the highest progenies no.11 and 12, gave 44.80 and 44.76 % respectively, on using h1 treatment, while, the mutated no. 13 gave 45.32% from t1 treatment. Finally, these results supported that the recurrent mutagenic treatments can be used to induce new mutant safflower genotypes which are characterized by spineless, earliness high seed yield and seed oil content. Thus, they can be involved in breeding programs to get new suitable varieties with high seed and oil yield.

Dissecting the Genetic Architecture of Seed Protein and Oil Content in Soybean from the Yangtze and Huaihe River Valleys Using Multi-Locus Genome-Wide Association Studies.

Soybean is a globally important legume crop that provides a primary source of high-quality vegetable protein and oil. Seed protein and oil content are two valuable quality traits controlled by multiple genes in soybean. In this study, the restricted two-stage multi-locus genome-wide association analysis (RTM-GWAS) procedure was performed to dissect the genetic architecture of seed protein and oil content in a diverse panel of 279 soybean accessions from the Yangtze and Huaihe River Valleys in China. We identified 26 quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for seed protein content and 23 for seed oil content, including five associated with both traits. Among these, 39 QTLs corresponded to previously reported QTLs, whereas 10 loci were novel. As reported previously, the QTL on chromosome 20 was associated with both seed protein and oil content. This QTL exhibited opposing effects on these traits and contributed the most to phenotype variation. From the detected QTLs, 55 and 51 candidate genes were identified for seed protein and oil content, respectively. Among these genes, eight may be promising candidate genes for improving soybean nutritional quality. These results will facilitate marker-assisted selective breeding for soybean protein and oil content traits.

Association of Agro-Morphological and Oil Traits in Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) Cultivars

The associations between the traits of interest in plant breeding are commonly evaluated by means of phenotypic, genotypic and environmental correlations, and through path coefficient analysis that shows direct and indirect cause and effect relationship. Sixteen groundnut genotypes (including local check) were evaluated for quantitative parameters. The crop was sown during 2015 wet season across four locations in Ethiopia. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with two replications. The results indicated that genotypic correlations were higher than the phenotypic and environmental ones. The grain yield (kg/ha) has presented positive and significant genetic correlation with PWP, SWP and 100SW. Genetic correlations of oil content with agro-morphological traits and oil quality parameters were shown that oil content was significant and positively correlated with pod weight per plant (PWP) and seed weight per plant (SWP) showing that possibility of indirect selection for oil content through these traits. The path analysis based on genotypic correlation in the present study was shown that selection for oil content trait is effective through OY, GY, NMP and NSPOD; breeding for TPUS/TS trait is effective through selection for high oil content, NMP, PWP, AGBP, O/L ratio, and NSP traits. Furthermore, the path analysis has shown that breeding for high O/L ratio can be conducted through selection for AGBP, NSPOD, NSP, oil content, TPUS/TS or oleic acid traits; likewise breeding for oil yield (OY) can be conducted via selection for oil content, NSP, AGBP, NBP or TPUS/TS.

Analysis of Genetic Variation and Enhancement of Salt Tolerance in French Pea (Pisum Sativum L.).

Pisum sativum L. (field pea) is a crop of a high nutritional value and seed oil content. The characterization of pea germplasm is important to improve yield and quality. This study aimed at using fatty acid profiling and amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers to evaluate the variation and relationships of 25 accessions of French pea. It also aimed to conduct a marker-trait associations analysis using the crude oil content as the target trait for this analysis, and to investigate whether 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA) could enhance salt tolerance in the pea germplasm. The percentage of crude oil of the 25 pea genotypes varied from 2.6 to 3.5%, with a mean of 3.04%. Major fatty acids in all of the accessions were linoleic acid. Moreover, the 12 AFLP markers used were polymorphic. The cluster analysis based on fatty acids data or AFLP data divided the 25 pea germplasm into two main clusters. The gene diversity of the AFLP markers varied from 0.21 to 0.58, with a mean of 0.41. Polymorphic information content (PIC) of pea germplasm varied from 0.184 to 0.416 with a mean of 0.321, and their expected heterozygosity (He) varied from 0.212 to 0.477 with a mean of 0.362. The AFLP results revealed that the Nain Ordinaire cultivar has the highest level of genetic variability, whereas Elatius 3 has the lowest level. Three AFLP markers (E-AAC/M-CAA, E-AAC/M-CAC, and E-ACA/M-CAG) were significantly associated with the crude oil content trait. The response of the Nain Ordinaire and Elatius 3 cultivars to high salinity stress was studied. High salinity (150 mM NaCl) slightly reduced the photosynthetic pigments contents in Nain Ordinaire leaves at a non-significant level, however, the pigments contents in the Elatius 3 leaves were significantly reduced by high salinity. Antioxidant enzymes (APX—ascorbate peroxidase; CAT—catalase; and POD—peroxidase) activities were significantly induced in the Nain Ordinaire cultivar, but non-significantly induced in Elatius 3 by high salinity. Priming the salt-stressed Nain Ordinaire and Elatius 3 plants with ALA significantly enhanced the pigments biosynthesis, antioxidant enzymes activities, and stress-related genes expression, as compared to the plants stressed with salt alone. In conclusion, this study is amongst the first investigations that conducted marker-trait associations in pea, and revealed a sort of correlation between the diversity level and salt tolerance.

DEVELOPMENT OF RAPD AND SSR MARKERS ASSOCIATED WITH OIL CONTENT IN FIVE PEANUT CULTIVARS

The peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is an important oilseed crop in tropical and subtropical regions of the world.Oil content has an important quality trait for peanut. However, the progress in genetic improvement of oil content is slow. Therefore, identification of molecular markers for oil content trait is a great impact in molecular breeding. Nineteen RAPD and ten SSR primers were used to detect markers related to oil content in peanut. The five peanut cultivars were grown for two seasons (2013, 2014) in El-Nubaria, Al-Beheira Governorate, and Egypt. The results showed that, Gregory cultivar recorded the highest value of oil content, while Giza5 cultivar exhibited the lowest value of oil content in both seasons. The results indicated the presence of five positive and nine negative RAPD markers and two positive and one negative SSR markers that could be considered as reliable markers for oil content in peanut.

Genome-wide identification of markers for selecting higher oil content in oil palm

BackgroundOil palm (Elaeis guineensis, Jacq.) is the most important source of edible oil. The improvement of oil yield is currently slow in conventional breeding programs due to long generation intervals. Marker-assisted selection (MAS) has the potential to accelerate genetic improvement. To identify DNA markers associated with oil content traits for MAS, we performed quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping using genotyping by sequencing (GBS) in a breeding population derived from a cross between Deli Dura and Ghana Pisifera, containing 153 F1 trees.ResultsWe constructed a high-density linkage map containing 1357 SNPs and 123 microsatellites. The 16 linkage groups (LGs) spanned 1527 cM, with an average marker space of 1.03 cM. One significant and three suggestive QTL for oil to bunch (O/B) and oil to dry mesocarp (O/DM) were mapped on LG1, LG8, and LG10 in a F1 breeding population, respectively. These QTL explained 7.6–13.3% of phenotypic variance. DNA markers associated with oil content in these QTL were identified. Trees with beneficial genotypes at two QTL for O/B showed an average O/B of 30.97%, significantly (P < 0.01) higher than that of trees without any beneficial QTL genotypes (average O/B of 28.24%). QTL combinations showed that the higher the number of QTL with beneficial genotypes, the higher the resulting average O/B in the breeding population.ConclusionsA linkage map with 1480 DNA markers was constructed and used to identify QTL for oil content traits. Pyramiding the identified QTL with beneficial genotypes associated with oil content traits using DNA markers has the potential to accelerate genetic improvement for oil yield in the breeding population of oil palm.

Genetic Parameters for Fruits, Seeds and Oil Content Traits of Jatropha curcas L. in a Semi-arid Region of Senegal

Aim: The aim of this work was to study the genetic parameters of fruits, seeds and oil content of Jatropha curcas accessions in a semi-arid region of Senegal. Methodology: The study was conducted on 35 accessions of J. curcas planted at the research station of National School of Agriculture located in Thies, Senegal. Fruits were collected from 1-4 years old plantations. Then, for each accession, 30 dry fruits were randomly selected and were Original Research Article

Genetic variation and heritability estimation in Jatropha curcas L. progenies for seed yield and vegetative traits

In this study, experiment was conducted on sandy loam soils poor in organic carbon and water holding capacity in southern Haryana, India to determine the best progenies of Jatropha curcas for bio-diesel production. Fifty progenies raised from seed sources collected from nine states of India were evaluated after five years of plantation for growth, seed and oil content traits. The progenies showed significant (P&gt; 0.05) differences for all the traits studied. Maximum seed yield/plant (879.37 g), number of capsules/plant (522.67) and plant height (408.33 cm) was recorded in P-44. Maximum oil content observed in P-37 (36.08%) followed by P-5 (35.64%). The magnitude of phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) was higher than the corresponding genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) for all the characters studied. Heritability was highest for oil content (95.49%) and 100-seed weight (87.75%) followed by seed yield (75.54%). Total capsules/plant exhibited highest genetic advance (92.69%) followed by number of branches per plant (64.32%). Hierarchical Euclidean cluster analysis of all 50 progenies using D2 statistics was done where the D2 analysis grouped the progenies into five clusters. The intra cluster distances ranged from 1.33 to 2.72. The maximum inter-cluster distance was observed between cluster II and V (6.43) followed by I and V indicating greater divergence among progenies belonging to these clusters and an attempt to cross the progenies in these clusters should bring out desirable gene combinations. These progenies showed considerable potential which can be tapped for planting and selecting the improved varieties.

Identification of QTL for seed coat colour and oil content inBrassica napusby association mapping using SSR markers

Qu, C., Hasan, M., Lu, K., Liu, L., Zhang, K., Fu, F., Wang, M., Liu, S., Bu, H., Wang, R., Xu, X., Chen, L. and Li, J. 2015. Identification of QTL for seed coat colour and oil content in Brassica napus by association mapping using SSR markers. Can. J. Plant Sci. 95: 387–395. Association mapping identifies quantitative trait loci (QTL) based on the strength of linkage disequilibrium (LD) between markers and functional polymorphisms across a set of diverse germplasms. In this study, we used association mapping to detect QTL and genome-wide simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers linked to seed coat colour and oil content in a population of 217 oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) accessions. We corrected for the population structure of B. napus using 389 genome-wide SSR markers. In total, 25 and 11 SSR markers linked to seed coat colour and oil content were detected, respectively, and these two sets of markers were in different linkage groups. Nine of these markers for seed coat colour spanned the major QTL region for seed coat colour, and been mapped to chromosome A9. Six of these markers showed high levels of association with both seed coat colour and oil content, and markers H081N08.8 and KS20291 were mapped to the major QTL region for seed coat colour on chromosome A9. Another marker, CB10364, was in high LD with all determined seed coat colour and oil content traits, and was mapped to the co-localized QTL region for them on chromosome A8. These data indicate that seed coat colour was found to be an important contributor to seed oil content. Further, we show that association mapping using a heterogeneous set of genotypes is a suitable approach for complementing and enhancing previously obtained QTL information for marker-assisted selection.

Assessment of a new strategy for selective phenotyping applied to complex traits in &amp;lt;i&amp;gt;Brassica napus&amp;lt;/i&amp;gt;

The accurate mapping of quantitative trait loci (QTL) depends notably on the number of recombination events occurring in the segregating population. The cost of phenotyping often limits the sample size used in QTL mapping. To get round this problem, we assessed a selective phenotyping method, called qtlRec sampling. In order to improve the accuracy of QTL mapping, a subset of individuals was selected to maximize the number of recombination events at putative QTL positions; the usefulness of this subset was compared to a selected sample built to maximize the recombination rate over the whole genome. We assessed this method on the quantitative oil content trait in Brassica napus. We showed that the qtlRec strategy could allow increasing accuracy (both support interval and position) of QTL location while it maintained a similar power of detection. We then applied this approach to the B. napus—Leptosphaeria maculans pathosystem for which resistance QTL with minor effect were previously identified. This allowed the validation of the QTL in six genomic regions. The qtlRec method is an attractive strategy for validating QTL in multiple year and/or location trials for a trait which requires costly and time-consuming phenotyping.

Genetic analysis of rapeseed self-incompatibility lines reveals significant heterosis of different patterns for yield and oil content traits

Self-incompatibility is one of the most effective approaches to utilizing heterosis in oilseed rape around the world. To evaluate the heterosis of double low self-incompatibility, the possibility of combining seed yield and oil content, and the genetic effects of parents on their hybrid progenies, a 2-year field trial using a 3 x 22 NC II mating design was conducted during the 1999-2001 growing seasons in Wuhan, China. Significant differences in seed yield per plant and seed oil content were observed among the F 1 hybrids and between F 1 progenies and their parents. However, the heterosis for seed yield per plant was much greater than that for seed oil content. Mid-parent heterosis and high-parent heterosis of seed yield per plant ranged from 5.50 to 64.11% and from -2.81 to 46.02%, while those of seed oil content ranged from -1.55 to 7.44% and -3.61 to 6.55%, respectively. Non-additive genetic effects were a major mechanism that accounted for the yield heterosis in addition to additive effects. In contrast, seed oil content heterosis was mainly dependent on an additive genetic effect. General combining ability (GCA) determined the stability of hybrid cultivars. In hybrid breeding, parental materials might be selected by the sum of GCAs and variances of special combining abilities (SCAs) of female and male parents for traits affected by both additive and non-additive effects, and by the sum of GCAs of two parents for traits controlled mainly by additive effects. Primary branches and their siliques were the most important yield traits.