inbreeding depression seedling and clonal evaluation trials.xlsx

Inbreeding occurs when two genetically related individuals mate, increasing the likelihood of their offspring having recessive or deleterious traits. This often results in a reduced fitness of a population, known as inbreeding depression. Cassava is highly heterozygous and typical cross-pollinated species, has been associated with severe inbreeding depression. Nonetheless, it is encouraging to observe that interest in inbreeding is beginning to gain momentum in cassava improvement initiatives. Certainly, there is the potential to harness the benefits of inbreeding, similar to what has been achieved with maize, by capitalizing on both additive and non-additive effects. Inbreeding will provide several advantages in cassava such as elimination of harmful recessive genes. Through selection, the less desirable genes are eliminated and superior genes are begin accumulated resulting in an increase in the productivity of the inbred populations. A key objective of this study was to explore the means of efficiently utilizing additive genetic variance in trait development through the fixation of beneficial alleles for key economic traits.