The interrelationship of some components of forage quality

SUMMARY To produce forage crop varieties of improved quality, the plant breeder must consider both the content of the quality components and their interrelationships. The methods used to examine the interrelationships involve simple correlations and path analyses. In the path analyses a dependent variate is specified which is completely and additively determined by a number of independent variates. The amount of variation present in the dependent variate accounted for by variation in each of the independent variates is calculated. The effects of an increase in the mean content of one of the quality components on the other components in the path system is predicted. As an example of the method, data for two years is analysed from timothy polycross progenies grown as swards and spaced plants. Primary and subsequent growths are compared. There are inconsistencies in the interrelationships of the quality components between years and between swards and spaced plants. Although only phenotypic statistics were calculated, the findings have implications in relation to plant breeding.