International Journal of Pharmaceutical Science and Research

Authors
Fekadu Tefera, Sentayehu Alamerew, Dagne Wegary

Abstract
Cup quality, often referred to as liquor quality is an important attribute of coffee and acts as yardstick for price determination. However, the identification of genotypes with superior quality merely depends on consideration of character or trait(s‘) with high heritability. The objectives of this study were to: (i) estimate the broad-sense heritability of coffee quality related characters (ii) to determine the performance of the eight promising F₁ coffee hybrids under highland local environments based on green bean physical and cup quality characteristics relative to that of the existing commercial cultivars in Southwestern Ethiopia. The mean value, genetic variances and heritability on an entry mean-basis were estimated across four environments. The mean difference among genotypes across environments for all ten of eleven studied variables were significant (P 0.01) except aromatic intensity taste. On this basis, the heritability estimates of the two green bean physical and two organoleptic cup quality characteristics were moderate to high (0.55±0.24 to 0.91±0.05), while the other seven characters exhibited low to moderate heritability (below 0.48±0.28). The GxE effects of these quality attributes with moderate to high heritability estimates was also not severing, suggesting selection based on single environment would be efficient for improving these traits on other sites. The Hybrids HC1 followed by HC3 and HC2 combined above average value for both green bean physical characteristics and desirable cup quality attributes and are more preferable.