Heritability, Correlation, and Genotype by Environment Interaction of Phenological and Fruit Quality Traits in Peach

Ten phenological and fruit quality traits were evaluated in seedlings from nine F-1 low to medium chill full-sib peach (Prunus persica) families and their parents over 2 years at two locations (Fowler, CA, and College Station, TX) to estimate variance components, genotype by environment interaction (GxE), and phenotypic correlations using restricted maximum likelihood mixed and multivariate models. The removal of nectarine [P. persica var. nucipersica (fruit without fuzz)] and pantao (flat shape fruit) seedlings from the analysis decreased the heritability for the fruit size, blush, tip, and soluble solids concentration (SSC), indicating the importance of taking the effects of the major gene of nectarine/pantao into account when assessing the heritability of traits. A strong correlation coefficient (r = 0.92) found between ripe date (RD) and fruit development period (FDP) and between fruit weight (FW) and fruit diameter (FD), indicates that either measure is equally effective, although the negative correlation between bloom date (BD) and FDP (r = -0.46) implies earlier blooming during cool temperatures tends to extend FDP. FW, FD, blush, and SSC had moderately weak correlations with RD (r = 0.56, 0.53, -0.41, and 0.48) and FDP (r = 0.57, 0.56, -0.50, and 0.39, respectively), which could be explained either by the presence of a strong link between quantitative trait loci of these traits and the ripening date locus or the pleiotropic effect of ripening date on many quantitative fruit characters. The traits RD, FDP, and titratable acidity (TA) had the highest broad-sense heritability (H-2) and lowest GxE. FW, tip, and shape showed the lowest H-2, the highest of GxE variance to the genetic F (GxE variance/total genotypic variance), and high GxE, whereas the other traits showed moderate GxE. For the traits that had a higher GxE interaction, selection for or against these traits should be done at the production location. A moderate narrow-sense heritability (h(2)) was estimated for BD, blush, fruit tip, and shape. FW and FD showed low to moderate h(2) while H-2 was high, whereas RD, FDP, SSC, and TA showed low h(2) and high H-2 estimates, indicating important nonadditive effects for these traits.