Determination of the optimal number of evaluations in half-sibling progenies of kale by bayesian approach

Resumo

Kale has a long vegetative cycle, requiring a lot of labor, due to the need for tutoring, thinning and multiple harvests, leading to difficulties in the maintenance and evaluation of experiments. Thus, the objective was to estimate the minimum number of evaluations for the assertive selection of half-sibling progenies of kale by means of a repeatability study by Bayesian approach. Twenty - four half-sibling progenies were evaluated in a randomized block design with four replicates and five plants per plot. The number of shoots, number of marketable leaves, fresh mass of marketable leaves and fresh mass per leaf were measured throughout 15 harvests. All the characteristics showed high estimates of the repeatability, indicating a high regularity in the expression of the characteristics during the harvesting period. With eight harvests it is possible to evaluate all the characteristics with a coefficient of determination superior to 85% in half-sibling progenies of kale.