INHERITANCE OF SOLUBLE SOLIDS AND PYRUVIC-ACID CONTENT OF BULB ONIONS

Analysis of parents and progeny generations of bulb onion (Allium cepa L.) crosses among parents with differing content of soluble solids (SS) and pyruvic acid (PA) showed that SS and PA are expressed and inherited in a quantitative manner, Distribution of SS and PA in both parents and progenies covered a range of values, Generation means, frequency distributions, deviation from midparent value, and estimates of gene effects all indicated that inheritance of SS and PA was additive, except for small deviations from the additive hypothesis in several individual backcrosses, Estimates of broad-sense heritability ranged from 48% to 53% for PA and 8% to 56% for SS, Phenotypic correlations between PA and SS estimated from the F-2 generations of two crosses, were moderate and positive (r = 0.50 and 0.42).