Abstract

There is need to know the heritability of different traits for the effective selection of parents for future breeding activities. A study was carried out to determine heritability of iron and zinc in common bean. Crosses were made with each donor and recipient parents to obtain four different types of crosses. Part of the F1 seed from each cross was sown in the screen house to produce F2 seeds and also backcrossed to both parents. Heritability was estimated using backcross method for high broad sense heritability and narrow-sense heritability. Broad sense heritability for progenies of NUA 11 × Zawadi (56%), NUA 11 × Pesa (76%), NUA 17 × Zawadi (57%) and NUA 17 × Pesa (59%) were obtained. Narrow sense heritability estimates for progenies of NUA 11×Zawadi, NUA 11 × Pesa, NUA 17 ×Zawadi and NUA 17 × Pesa were 65%, 71%, 79% and 63%, respectively. Genetic advance (GA) values for NUA 17 × Zawadi, NUA 11 × Pesa, NUA 17 × Pesa and NUA 11 × Zawadi was 35, 12.3, 3.5 and 1%, respectively.  This study demonstrates that there is a potential for improvement of concentration of iron and zinc in common bean genotypes. Therefore, selection of a superior genotype on the basis of its phenotypic performance, heritability of traits could be well exploited.

Key words: Common bean, iron, zinc, heritability, genetic advance, GA as percentage of mean (GAM).