Genetic evaluation and selection index in tetraploid Brachiaria ruziziensis

Half-sib progenies of congo signal grass (Brachiaria ruziziensis Germain & Evrard, syn.: B.eminii, Urochloa ruziziensis) were analysed using a mixed model methodology. The objective was to estimate genetic and phenotypic parameters, predict individual genetic values, estimate correlations between characters associated with biomass production and forage nutritive value and use this information to determine the economic weights to compare three multiplicative selection indices. Individual narrow-sense heritabilities corrected for inbreeding varied from 0.14 to 0.91 for characters associated with biomass production and from 0.04 a 0.24 for nutritional value characters. The correlations among characters associated with annual biomass production were of high magnitude. In contrast, biomass production characters were negatively correlated with crude protein, acid detergent fibre and lignin. Total dry matter yield, crude protein and regrowth ability were weighted separately in evaluations during wet and dry season or annually in selection indices. Index that considered characters annually resulted in better distribution of forage production along the year than indices that separated wet and dry season production.