The wild species Avena sterilis L. has been widely used for crossing with cultivated oat. The high affinity between them enables an increase in genetic variability and transference of important agronomic genes. However, undesirable characters such as great plant height and length of the panicle can be transferred to progenies. These characters were analysed to evaluate the genetic variability and inheritance in crossing between Avena sativa L. and Avena sterilis L. Estimates of phenotypical and genetical variances were high while the environmental variance was low, providing a high broad sense heritability. The additive gene effect was the most important for explaining the genetic variation for both characters.
interspecific crossing; agronomic characters
