REFINEMENT TO THE MODERN MASS SELECTION METHOD

Abstract

The theoretical basis for a hetter elimination of environmental effects are discussed upon selecting metric characteristics in agricultura) crops, It is considered that the majority of environmental effects follows a function of geographic tendency in the production of individual plants, There are evidences of this from uniformity yield trials. A method is proposed which will make possible to estímate the systematic environmental effects using the so called mobile averages. lf the estimates of the sistematic environmental effects are substracted from • the individual plant yield an estimate of the genetic and non sistematic environmental effects will be obtained. The la ter are considered to be of small magnitude and with zero mean when many plants are in volved, An unbiased estimate is thus obtained of the genetic effects which permits the selection of plants with the best genetic constitution for yield.