Report on evaluating Brachiaria humidicola population Bh16B hybrid performance

The population Bh16b was formed from the remnant seed of the best crosses identified from Bh16 population. As the intra-family variance in that trial was higher than the inter-family variance, and considering the constrains to develop a new Bh hybrid population, the breeder decided to take advantage of intra-family variance and explore those hybrids stored in the seed storage room. Conformed by 1046 hybrids, Bh16b was phenotyped on the field in order to measure the hybrid performance for the following traits: Visual assessment of biomass production, vigor, high, visual assessment of leaf steam ratio and drone based measurements like biomass and greenness. The trials were stablished at two locations: CIAT Palmira and Llanos-Cabuyaro. Each trial followed an augmented design with 25 incomplete blocks. Data was obtained for various cuttings in each location, each cutting after 6 weeks from previous one, to pursue two cuttings from the dry and two from the wet season.