The role of heritability and genetic variability in estimated selection response of soybean lines on tidal swamp land

Selection response is affected by genetic variability and heritability. high selection response is achieved by broad genetic variability and or high heritability. the objective of this study is to estimate the selection response of soybean lines. forty soybean lines derived from sinabung × mlgg 1087 cross were grown in tidal swamp land in barito kuala,south kalimantan. broad genetic variability was shown by seven agronomical characters,such as days to flowering and maturing,number of branches per plant,number of reproductive nodes per plant,number of filled pods per plant,weight of 100 grains,and grain yield. narrow genetic variability was shown by plant height. high heritability was shown by days to flowering (0.923),days to maturity (0.896) and weight of 100 grains (0.762); where their selection responses were 4.34 days,3.53 days and 1.21 g,respectively. moderate heritability was shown by plant height (0.435) and number of filled pods per plant (0.226) with the selection response of 6.41 cm and 1.82 pods. low heritability was shown by number of branches per plant (0.121),number of reproductive nodes per plant (0.160) and grain yield (0.056) that lead selection response of 0.10 branch,0.58 nodes and 0.03 t/ha grain. in this study,the characters with high genetic variability but low heritability produced low selection response. it indicates that the role of heritability was greater than genetic variability. © universiti putra malaysia press.