A comprehensive model for disomically inherited metrical traits expressed in triploid tissues

Abstract

A biometrical genetic model is presented for the analysis of quantitatively varying diploid inherited traits which are expressed in a triploid phase. It shows that gene dispersion and ambidirectionality influences virtually all the components of means and at least four components of variances. Consequently, separate parameters are needed to describe the genetic variation among the second-degree statistics of the selfing and the backcrossing series. It is further shown that the effects of maternal/cytoplasmic inheritance can be separated from those of the nuclear genes both by the scaling tests and by the weighted least squares method. The applicability of the model to experimental data is demonstrated by analysing the amylose content of the generations derived from a cross between two pure breeding lines of rice.