TY - JOUR AU - HARBERD, D. J. AB - INTRODUCTION In genecological trials, the significance of difference between populations is normally assessed for each of the various recorded characters by the standard statistical procedure of comparison of the variance between means of populations with that within populations. Clearly, the size of the within population variance is of great importance in trial work — any justifiable procedure which will reduce it, will correspondingly increase the precision of the experiment. The within population variance can be regarded as being composed of two parts, the one genetic and the other non-genetic. The genetic part derives from the different genotypes making up the population; while such factors as non-uniformity of the trial ground and errors of recording contribute to the non-genetic part. Thus the genetic part is primarily a characteristic of the population, and imposes a lower limit to the size of the within population variance, whereas the non-genetic part is essentially a feature of the trial and could perhaps be beneficially reduced to an insignificant quantity by suitable adjustments of the experimental technique. Although the genetic part of the within population variance is more characteristic of the population, yet it is not independent of the trial. For instance, a group TI - THE WITHIN POPULATION VARIANCE IN GENECOLOGICAL TRIALS JF - New Phytologist DO - 10.1111/j.1469-8137.1957.tb06974.x DA - 1957-11-01 UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/wiley/the-within-population-variance-in-genecological-trials-SBy1SJid9r SP - 269 VL - 56 IS - 3 DP - DeepDyve ER -