Currently, Brachiaria brizantha Stapf is the tropical grass with the largest cultivated area in Brazil, being responsible for a major part of the seed market and for the increase in animal production. There are several superior genotypes available in germplasm banks, collected from the African continent and in need of evaluation. The selection of these genotypes must be based on predicted genotype values of the individuals in function of being perennial plants and of unsexed propagation. The standard procedure for the prediction of genetic values is the individual BLUP (Best Linear Unbiased Predictor), using estimates of variance components achieved by the restricted maximum likelihood (REML) on an individual model. With the aim of selecting B. brizantha... |