Inbreeding depression in early dwarf type progenies of cashew var. Nanum

Abstract

The use of seeds for the setting of cashew (Anacardium occidentale L.) orchard leads to uneven agronomic and commercial plant features such as plant vigor, yield, nut weight, and color, size and quality of the fruit. Aiming to estimate the inbreeding depression rate in cashew plants, data of vegetative characters and yield traits of 12, 18 and 29 months dwarf cashew progenies were obtained: selfed, open pollinated and controlled pollinated. The main results were: high germination percentual in all groups of plants (81% to 94%), with the exception of self pollinated seeds of CCP 1001 which attained only 63%; the damaging effects of endogamy were more pronounced in the yield and number of seeds; the effects on seed yield per plant were 37.6% in the CCP 76 clone, whereas in the CCP 1001 clone a 48% decrease was observed. The other trait affected by endogamy was the number of seed per plant which was 25.3% and 43.3% for CCP 76 and CCP 1001, respectively. The endogamy effects on cashew are expressed by decreasing both seed germination and mean yield of selfed seeds.