Genetic correlation and path analysis of the quantitative traits in Gansu alpine fine-wool sheep

To investigate the genetic parameters of quantitative traits of Gansu alpine fine-wool sheep,the breeding data from 6 core groups of Gansu alpine fine-wool sheep,which collected at Gansu sheep breeding technology promotion station in Huangcheng from 2006 to 2007,were used to analyze genetic correlation and heritability of some quantitative traits,such as birth weight,birth grade,wool length at weaning,weaning weight,wool length of young sheep,fineness of young sheep,wool yield of young sheep,body weight of young sheep and so forth.The heritability was estimated with the half-sib intraclass correlation.The genetic correlation was analyzed with components of variance and covariance in rams.In addition,the correlation coefficient was tested significantly.The results showed that there was a significant difference in the effects of these quantitative traits on the wool yield.The path analysis reveals that the dirty wool weight,clean wool rate and interaction traits of both including weaning weight,body weight after shearing wool,staple length and strength,become the most important factors to affect the wool yield.