Diallel among soybean genotypes with high oil content and resistance to sudden death syndrome

The objective of this work was to use a partial diallel to evaluate the combining ability of 14 soybean genotypes and recommend superior combinations. Seven of the genotypes had high oil yield; other seven exhibited tolerance to sudden death syndrome and they generated 49 hybrids in a diallel cross without reciprocals. F2plants of each cross and the parents were evaluated for the following traits: number of days to maturity (NDM), oil content in the seeds (OC), grain yield (GY) and oil yield (OY). The results indicated the existence of genetic variability in the parents and progeny for all the traits. The rank of the parents based on the means was similar to the rank based on general combining ability (GCA) for all the traits. The specific combining ability (SCA) and the GCA were significant for all the traits, with a predominance of additive effects. The parent with the highest GCA and mean for OC was the cultivar A 7002; on the other hand, the lowest values were found in PI 520733 and IAC 100. The crosses with the highest oil yields were those involving parent A 7002, except when it was crossed with IAC 100