Criteria for selecting groundout varieties in breeding for resistance to rosette disease

Short-duration groundnut cultivars were screened under high, medium and low rosette disease pressures and evaluated for rosette disease incidence, presence of groundnut rosette assister virus and other agronomic characteristics. Heritabili- ties of these characteristics and interaction plus variance components across the three disease pressures were calculated. Significant differences among the entries were observed for both agronomical parameters and disease resistance. Broad-based heritabilities for pod and kernel yields under high disease pressure were higher than the values for rosette resistance. It is expected from the results that the genetic improvement for rosette disease resistance will be higher using pod yields as a selection criterion. The interaction components between cultivars and disease pressures were significant, suggesting different responses of the cultivars across the three disease pressures. Yield stability may only be introduced when the cultivars are evaluated under different dise...