Table 3.

Average, maximum, minimum, least significant differences (l.s.d._0.05), genotypic (${\sigma }_g^2$), genotype-by-location interaction (${\sigma }_{gl}^2$), and experimental error (${\sigma }_{\epsilon }^2$) variance components and associated standard errors (±SE), and HS family mean repeatability (R₂) estimated from the 40 M. officinalis half sib families, evaluated across two locations, Yuzhong and Linze.

Traits	DW	LS	PH	SD	SN	LA	SV
Average	126	0.94	165	1.69	8.3	7.7	2.1
Max	206	1.20	188	2.57	11.6	8.4	3.8
Min	63	0.71	144	1.72	7.4	6.7	0.5
l.s.d.0.05	14	0.13	9	0.2	1.16	0.38	0.55
${\sigma }_g^2$	1025 ± 327	0.018 ± 0.005	102 ± 40	0.099 ± 0.038	0.504 ± 0.257	0.24 ± 0.06	0.56 ± 0.21
${\sigma }_{gl}^2$	715 ± 167	ns	109 ± 28	0.112 ± 0.027	0.637 ± 0.227	ns	0.53 ± 0.13
${\sigma }_{\epsilon }^2$	279 ± 14	0.036 ± 0.002	167 ± 9	0.065 ± 0.003	3.52 ± 0.18	0.09 ± 0.01	0.18 ± 0.02
R2	0.72	0.60	0.55	0.60	0.36	0.89	0.65

LS, leaf to stem ratio; SV, spring vigor; LA, leaf area (cm²); PH, plant height (cm); DW, herbage dry weight (g/plant); SD, stem diameter (cm); SN, stem number.

ns, not significant (p <0.05).