Acerola (Malpighia emarginata D.C.), a typical tropical crop, has shown excellent adaptation in many Brazilian regions. Its high vitamin C content has attracted the interest of consumers, farmers, industries and exporters. Selected materials with desirable characteristics such as high productivity and high fruit quality must be planted to establish new orchards. The main purposes of this work were to estimate and genetically interpret the portion of variability among some characteristics of acerola plants within a population. Open pollination progenies from 62 mother trees previously selected within a commercial plantation were utilized. The experimental design used was a completely randomized block with three replicates, four plants per plot and spacing of 4 by 3 meters. The results showed that in the first year of evaluation the majority of the progenies had already fruited and the proportion of the flowering was lower than that of fruiting during the period of evaluation. The parameters used to evaluate genetic variation within the population showed high variability, which is favorable for selection.
Malpighia emarginata; genetic variability; phenotypic selection
