Simultaneous selection for yield, adaptability and stability and repeatability coefficient in full-sib families of elephant grass for energy purposes via mixed models

Productive performance of elephant grass clones from full-sib families in an advanced stage of breeding

“…The elephant grass clones evaluated in the study consisted of 15 hybrids originating from biparental crosses (full-sib families), obtained and selected by Silva et al (2020) and Vidal et al (2022a). The 15 clones were previously chosen for their high yield, associated with other traits of interest for bioenergy production.…”

“…The first study began in 2013, when Silva et al (2020) carried out crosses to obtain full-sib families among eight elephant grass accessions belonging to the UENF germplasm bank, which were selected for late flowering, high dry matter yield, and larger stem diameter. In 2014, Vidal et al (2022a) implemented an experiment involving 10 parents of elephant grass that had been previously selected based on studies on biomass production potential, originating 15 full-sib families in a circulant diallel system.…”

“…Therefore, preliminary tests must be undertaken to evaluate the superiority of the selected genotypes by comparing them with commercial controls to later compose value for cultivation and use experiments for the release of new elephant grass cultivars. The selection of elephant grass genotypes has been performed based on phenotypic data evaluated in the field using accurate selection approaches, such as mixed models (restricted maximum likelihood/best linear unbiased prediction) (Rodrigues et al 2017, Stida et al 2018, Silva et al 2020, Vidal et al 2022a. This is a precise selection method, as it estimates the components of variance using the restricted maximum likelihood (REML) technique and predicts genotypic values using the best linear unbiased prediction (BLUP) method (Viana and Resende 2014).…”