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Participatory selection was conducted in 2008 through 2009 to identify farmers' preference for species and horticultural traits that may constitute future breeding objectives. Vegetable farmers were selected from Moshi and Arusha regions, test population comprised twenty-six accessions from four Solanum species (eggplant and relatives). Purposive sampling was used to select the farming communities with high African eggplant production activities; a multistage random sampling procedure was adopted to select farmers from three regions for participatory meeting. The focus group discussion sessions identified fruit shape, taste, earliness, medicinal properties, marketability and resistance to diseases as farmers' preferred traits in S. aethiopicum; taste and marketability for S. melongena, taste and medicinal properties among S. macrocarpon and S. anguivi. Fruits characterized by cream colour at commercial harvest are most preferred compared to green, to a lesser extent is purple. Interestingly high fruits per plant, fruits per cluster and fruit cluster per plant best described S. anguivi. Fruit yield was superior in Db3 (S. aethiopicum Gilo group), top five accessions for organoleptic properties are Db3, Ab2, MM 1619, S00052 and MM 1086. Characters indicated above may constitute breeding objectives and population identified may serve as pollen parents for development of new varieties in African eggplant. Intraspecific hybridization within S. aethiopicum Gilo cultigroup, hybridization among Gilo and Shum cultigroups and interspecific hybridization between S. aethiopicum and S. anguivi may evolve new population aimed at improving fruit yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In East Africa, Ethiopian mustard (Brassica carinata A. Braun) is cultivated primarily for its leaves, but in Ethiopia preference is high for oil in the seed. Dual purpose importance of the seeds for planting and for oil suggests the need to improve seed production efficiency through understanding variation pattern for floral morphology and seed characters. We investigated genetic diversity and correlations for floral and seed characteristics among 14 accessions of Ethiopian mustard to improve seed set and yield. Field trials were conducted during 2008 and 2009; flowers were examined for short stamen height, long stamen height, pistil height, and silliqua for seed weight, seeds/silliqua and silliqua/plant. Results were largely consistent between years, indicating that the variation measured was mainly controlled by genetic factors. High genetic variation for seed characters and reproductive phenology among the accessions was noted. The number of days to appearance of flowers showed high discriminatory ability among the accessions. A wide continuous variation was observed among accessions for anther-stigma separation. Accessions 1, 3 and 14 were identified as early flowering. A significant and positive correlation coefficient between short stamen height and seed weight indicated a substantial complementation among these characters for seed yield improvement. The short stamen height is a good indicator for selection in favour of seed commercialization and indices for selection of pollen parent for seed yield improvement. Accessions 5, 7, 14, 16 and 22 are best for multiple characters and are recommended for seed production for any of the seasons in Arusha, Tanzania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

West African okra is an under-exploited vegetable crop with high pod and seed yield potentials. F1 hybrids of eight accessions of West African okra were composited to produce F2 seeds and backcross generations. Field evaluation of six generations (P1, P2, F1, F2, BC1, and BC2) from five crosses was carried out in a randomized complete block design with three replications. The A, B, and C scaling tests were not significant for 100 seed weight, while significant A, B, or C scaling test for seed yield pe r plant was recorded. Additive gene effects [d] appeared to have contributed immensely to the inheritance of both characters. However, a non-significant interaction (i, j, l) for 100 seed weight corroborates with the results of individual A, B, and C scaling tests. A duplicate epitasis (Acc5 × Acc4) implied difficulty in evolving improved varieties. Estimates of genetic effects confirmed the preponderance of additive gene effects for 100 seed weight and seed yield per plant. High narrow sense heritability and genetic advance indicate the possibility of substantial improvement in seed yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]