Genetic analyses of phenological traits of pistachio (Pistacia vera L.)

Heritability of flowering and leafing date of pistachio (Pistacia vera L.) were estimated based on half-sib family and parent-offspring regression analyses. Narrow sense heritabilities of flowering date ranged from 0.68 to 0.88 based on half-sib analyses and from 0.89 to 0.95 based on parent-offspring regression analyses. The narrow sense heritability of leafing date was 0.75 based on half-sib analyses and 0.60 from parent-offspring regression analysis. First leafing date was highly correlated with flowering date (r=0.59-0.78), suggesting that first leafing date could be used to select for flowering date in seedlings long before the onset of flowering.