Variability and Heritability of Perloline in Festuca sp., Lolium sp., and Lolium‐Festuca Hybrids1

Perloline (an alkaloid that may inhibit digestibility in ruminants) was determined in Lolium and Festuca sp. and in Lolium‐Festuca hybrids. Lolium sp. had less perloline than Festuca sp. L. multiflorum had the smallest amount of perloline and F. elatior the largest. Although highly significant genotype‐environment interactions were obtained for perloline quantity for a 3‐year period, broad sense heritability estimates varied from 0.57 to 0.80 among polycross progenies of three groups of genetic materials. Correlation coefficients of association between parents and progenies were positive and highly significant. The data suggest that genetic control of perloline may depend on relatively few genes and that progress can be made toward the development of Lolium‐Festuca populations that are either high or low in perloline content.