Inheritance of long chain fatty acid content in rapeseed (Brassica napus L.)

A large industrial oil market has recently developed for high erucic acid (>500 g kg−1) rape (Brassica napus L.) cultivars. This research was conducted to: (i) determine genetic effects for five fatty acids, (ii) determine if maternal effects influence fatty acid content of progeny, and (iii) estimate correlations among fatty acid contents in hybrid progeny. Lines with very high erucic acid content and very low erucic acid content were used to develop eight generations to estimate additive, dominance, and epistatic effects for fatty acid content using Generation Means Analyses. Mean oleic, linoleic, linolenic, eicosenoic and erucic acid content differed among generations and additive genetic effects were important for control of all five fatty acids, contributing from 84% to 97% of the total sums of squares for each fatty acid. Epistasis was observed in the inheritance of eicosenoic acid. Maternal effects were not detected.