CORRELAÇÕES FENOTÍPICAS ENTRE CARACTERES AGRONÔMICOS DE INTERESSE EM CRUZAMENTOS DIALÉLICOS DE AVEIA BRANCA PHENOTYPIC CORRELATIONS AMONG AGRONOMIC CHARACTERS IN WHITE OAT DIALLEL CROSSES

In oat (Avena sativa L.) breeding programs, the advance of segregating generations demands physical, financial and humans resources. However, an effective process of selection by characters highly correlated can facilitate the success of plant breeders in obtaining genetic constitutions with high performance in early generations. Five oat genotypes (UPF16, UPF18, UFRGS7, UFRGS17 e URPel15) were crossed in a diallel scheme, generating ten populations. The phenotypic correlation coefficient for F2 and F3 generations was obtained to indicate indirect selection for characters highly correlated to improve selection efficiency. The correlation analyses performed indicated that the number of panicles per plant reveals the highest contribution for crop yield. Besides, the indirect selection through panicle weight proves to be promising to improve crop yield in some crosses, despite its tendency to result in plants with higher stature. The weight of the main panicle is mainly increased by the rise in number of grains per panicle, with a minor effect by average grain weight. On the other hand, it is extremely difficult to identify genetic constitutions that ally associations between quantitative and qualitative characters, which do not correspond to the expectations of plant breeding.