Morpho-agronomic characterization and estimates of genetic parameters in annatto plant

• Autor(a) principal: Dias,Nilma O
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Outros Autores: Rebouças,Tiyoko NH, São José,Abel R, Amaral,Cláudio LF
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Horticultura Brasileira
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0102-05362017000200242
• topic: Bixa orellana; natural dyes; heritability; genetic gain.

ABSTRACT Originally from tropical America, annatto is an important source of natural dyes for food, pharmaceutical and textile industries, especially for the increasing demand of this pigment substituting artificial dyes. The aim of this study was to evaluate genotypic variation of annatto cultivar Embrapa 37, aiming to generate subsidies for breeding programs as well as to help out the producers using vegetative propagation of superior genotypes. Therefore, the morphological characterization was carried out and estimates of genetic and phenotypic parameters, for production and quality of the fruits, were obtained. The results showed wide rate of genetic variability among the plants with low environmental influence on the phenotype for traits bixin content, fruit width, number of fruits per bunch and mass of 100 seeds. The authors concluded that superior genotypes can be selected through the parental performance and propagated vegetatively to form more profitable crops, as well as used in breeding programs through self-fertilization with analysis of resulting progeny.