F3 family genetic variation

The 125 F₃ families were analyzed as RCBD using PROC MIXED in SAS software²⁶. In the model, plant was used as the random factor to detect differences among families; also plant and families were used as the random factor to obtain the empirical best linear unbiased predictor (EBLUPs) for posterior QTL analysis. Differences among families were calculated using the Least Square Means with Adjusted Tukey t-test at 95% level.

Additionally, a joint analysis of the 125 F₃ families with the parents; cultivars Valmaine and Okeechobee was conducted as RCBD to detect significant differences between the F₃ families and both parents. We used the Dunnett’s test between the F₃ families and each of the parents to test the assumption that an F₃ family could be significantly less damaged compared to cultivar Valmaine (the resistant parent). An F₃ family significantly better than Valmaine is thus considered a “transgressive segregant”.