Common bean is an interesting crop from the point of view of the consumer, farmer and processor. Consequently, breeding program objectives must be designed to address the needs of the farmers who will use the cultivars. An important challenge for dry bean breeders working with certain market classes is the negative association between seed size and seed yield potential. Correlation is a pragmatic approach to develop selection criteria for accumulating optimum combination of yield contributing traits in a simple genotype. To increase yield, the study of direct and indirect effects of yield and its components provide the basis for its successful breeding program and thus increase of bean yield can be more effective ely tackled on the basis of performance of yield components and selection for closely associated traits. The objective of this study was to evaluate the interrelationships between different yield traits in dry bean genotypes from Romania with the purpose to dignify the possibilities of combining these traits in an optimum proportion to improve the yield. For these genotypes about 98 % of the grains yield variability can be explained by the influence of the seven quantitative traits. The number of pods/plant has the highest distinctly significant contribution (54 %) on achieving yield, followed by pod weight with a contribution of 30 % on the total variability. Given the partial and semi partial correlations coefficients between grains weight/plant and other traits, it is noted that the individual relation of each trait is strongly controlled by the influences of the other traits included in the study. Grains weight/pod and grains number/plant have a positive and significant indirect influence on the contribution of other traits to yield achievement. Pod weight affects in a considerable and negative extent the contribution of different traits to yield achievement. It is recommended to obtain and cultivate bean genotypes that possess an optimal number of 4-5 seeds / pod, associated with a pod length of 8-9 cm, which provides more than 30 grains / plant.

dry bean, correlations, grains yield,

Presentation: oral