Determination of the number of years in Arabic coffee progenies selection through repeatability

The purpose of this study was to estimate the repeatability coefficient of grain yield in A rabic coffee and to determine the minimal number of annual harvests required for a satisfactory level of reliability at the plant level. The experiment was conducted in Campinas (SP) in a randomized complete block design with 21 F(3)RC(2) progenies of lcatu germplasm, for nine years, in nine replications. The repeatability coefficients were estimated by the method of analyses of variance, principal components based oil correlation and covariance matrices and structural analyses based oil correlation matrices. The selection of F(3)RC(2) progenies of lcatu germplasm call be carried out with an accuracy of 80% in the three first harvests. The repeatability coefficient estimated by the covariance matrix method was the most adequate methodology to estimate this coefficient, since it minimize the effect of biennial bearing.