VARIABILITY OF TRAITS OF GROWTH - IN VIVO AND IN VITRO - ON GREENHOUSE CARNATION

Several traits of growth on greenhouse carnation were analysed at seven varieties, growing both in vivo and in vitro. In vitro culture, proliferation and root formation were more intense in  Pink  Sol,  Caribe  and  Tanga  than  in  Pink  Sim,  Obor  and  Domingo  cultivars.  The  highest intervarietal variability, under in vivo conditions, was recorded for the number of flowers per plant and number of petals per flower, while in vitro all analysed characters showed an extremely large span of variability  values  (s%  =  26.5  -  109.1). The  heritability  in  broad  sense  showed  high  values  for  the analysed characters,  both in  vivo  (H2 =  0.548  -  0.992)  and in vitro (H2 =  0.688  -0.953)  conditions. There has been noted a tight positive and negative correlation among a lot of the traits of plants, both in  vivo  and  in  vitro.  Correlations  among  the  desirable  traits  can  be  used  as  selection  indices,  in carnation breeding.