Sashaydiall: A SAS program for hayman’s diallel analysis

Abstract

Different methods of diallel crossing are commonly used in plant breeding. The diallel cross analysis method proposed by Hayman is particularly useful because it provides information, among others, on additive and dominance effects of genes, average degree of dominance, proportion of dominance, direction of dominance, distribution of genes, maternal and reciprocal effects, number of groups of genes that control a trait and exhibit dominance, ratio of dominant to recessive alleles in all the parents, and broadsense and narrow-sense heritability. In this paper, we fully describe a SAS-based software SASHAYDIALL for performing a complete diallel cross analysis based on Hayman’s model with or without reciprocals. We demonstrate the use of SASHAYDIALL with two data sets; one is a published diallel cross data set with reciprocals in cabbage (Brassica oleracea L.), and the second is a data set from a multilocation diallel cross trial in maize (Zea mays L.) without reciprocals. With SASHAYDIALL, diallel experiments conducted in single sites can be analyzed to estimate various genetic parameters, and this analysis is extended over locations or environments to assess genetic effect ´ environment interaction. SASHAYDIALL is user-friendly software that provides detailed genetic information from diallel crosses involving any number of parents and locations.