Potencial de utilização de características anatômicas e fisiológicas na seleção de progênies de cafeeiro

Abstract

A coffee breeding program aiming at a higher tolerance to different environmental conditions is being developed at the Universidade Federal de Lavras (UFLA). In this program, we are using coffee progenies that present larger and heavier grains then those of traditional cultivars. The selection assisted by plant anatomy and physiology has been highlighted as an important technique for optimizing works in breeding programs, since variations in plant anatomy can indicate traits that attribute tolerance to the different cultivating conditions, such as tolerance to draught and to pathogens. We aimed at evaluating the potential of using anatomic and physiological traits in the selection of coffee progenies. For the anatomical and physiological evaluations, we sampled twenty progenies originated from three types of population precedence groups of the experiment installed at UFLA. The design was completely randomized, with two evaluation periods. The progenies studied presented genetic variability, verifying divergence between them. In general, the genetic variance of the progenies is higher in the draught period, indicating that there is higher variability between progenies during this period. Anatomic and physiological traits are efficient as a technology to aid in selecting coffee progenies.