Heritability and Genetic Advance Estimates of Key Shea Fruit Traits

Genetic erosion of shea trees, which has been on-going at an alarming rate, necessitated urgent conservation attentions. Owing to the vast geographical distribution species across Ghana, in situ germplasms was established by tagging and monitoring selected trees annually. Technologies have developed that enable be grafted, allowing for development germplasm banks research station Cocoa Research Institute Bole. However, before these materials could used crop improvement programs, there is a need evaluate them key fruit traits relevant global business. This experiment carried out tagged nut traits. Freshly harvested fruits were evaluated their brix, pulp yield kernel size properties see if needed diversity gains. Eight studied, with all showing significant difference, high broad sense heritability genetic advance traits, indicating potential gains breeding programs. Qualitative analysis classified into five shapes, ellipsoid shape most frequent observation (69.5%), while oblong least represented (1%). Fruit surface pubescence indicated surfaces without hairs (smooth) slightly higher number (52.6%) than (rough), 47.4%. Pearson correlation studies showed positive relationship between weight (0.68), length (0.48), width (0.51), (0.5) shell (0.77). Key components responsible total variations observed decomposed from first two principal (PC), cumulatively explained 78.4% variation within materials. PC1 alone contributed 46.4%, PC2 32%. weight, length, width, contributing PC1, brix percent PC2. Percent ratio PC3. Clustering no regular pattern based on location or any particular trait, level 58% dissimilarity index.