Quantitative inheritance of the progoitrin and sinigrin content in Brussels sprouts

The quantitative inheritance of the sinigrin and progoitrin content of Brussels sprouts was studied at three production locations in the Netherlands. The content of sinigrin and progoitrin of 30 F1-hybrids varied between the production locations, though their ranking with respect to the content of sinigrin and progoitrin was relatively stable. Using variance analysis the broad sense heritability (i.e. the genetic contribution to total variance) was found to be 0.79 and 0.77 for sinigrin and progoitrin respectively, an indication of a high genetic component in the content of both glucosinolates in F1-hybrids. The content of sinigrin and progoitrin inherits as a proportion of the average content of the corresponding parental lines. For sinigrin and progoitrin narrow sense heritability values of respectively 0.72 and 1.09 were calculated using 150 F1-hybrids and their corresponding parental lines. The high narrow sense heritability values obtained confirm that breeding for a low content of both glucosinolates in Brussels sprouts is possible.