Agim Canko*, Foto Kashta
Agricultural University of Tirana, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment
*Corresponding author e-mail : agimcanko@yahoo.com
Abstract
Dry bean is considered a staple cop in comparison with other leguminous crops in Albania. Some 15-17 thousand hectares are cultivated with crop each year in Albania, ranking this country among the main growers in Europe with regard to land acreage per capita. Most of dry bean cultivars cultivated in Albania are landraces with long life cycle and stable yields. Nevertheless these cultivars revealed yield fluctuations due to stresses caused by environmental changes in the last twenty years. Overcoming yield shortages has been the focus of a breeding program aiming at breeding new half determinant cultivars adaptable to earlier sowing dates, and with improved yield components such as number of pods per plant, number of beans per pod. 1000 beans weight, etc. This objective was achieved through a classical breeding program in which five dry beans landraces and introduced cultivars were crossed with each other. Final data were used to calculate crossing ability among these populations, genetic heritability, and genotypic correlations of some quantitative traits. These results may serve to improve the bean yielding capacity via classical breeding methods.
Key Words: Genotypic correlations, trait heritability, environmental stresses
