pnut pnut Peanut Science 0095-3679 0095-3679 American Peanut Research and Education Society 10.3146/i0095-3679-5-2-12 Articles Estimates of Epistasis for Diverse Peanut Cultivars1,2 T. G. Isleib , J. C. Wynne , and J. O. Rawlings 3 Graduate Research Assistant and Associate Professor of Crop Science and Professor of Statistics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27650

1Paper no. 5611 of the Journal Series of the North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station, Raleigh, NC 27650.

2This work was partially supported by CSRS Research Agreement 701-15-51.

 7 1978 5 2 106 108 2 8 1978 American Peanut Research and Education Society 1978 American Peanut Research and Education Society Abstract

Progeny from a six-parent half-diallel of diverse peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) cultivars were evaluated for the F1 through F5 generations for presence of epistatic effects. Significant variability attributable to specific combining ability (SCA) persisted over generations for yield and other seed characters. Epistasis was indicated since dominance could account for little of the variance due to SCA in the F5 generation. Estimates of dominance and epistatic variance components were obtained using an iterative weighted least squares procedure. For all characters measured, estimates of epistatic variance were larger than those of dominance variance. It was concluded that considerable epistatic variance may exist in populations derived from crosses of diverse peanut lines.

 Key Words Arachis hypogaea; , genetic variance; , combining ability; , exotic germplasm