SAS Macro for the Generation and Randomization of MERC Designs for Type III CDC

Abstract

Most of the work on designs for diallel cross experiments are done by taking only F1's into consideration (i.e., Type IV mating designs). For an experimenter, the interest may not lie only in comparing the F1's but in comparing F1's along with its parents. Furthermore, most of the work on diallel/ partial diallel cross experiments has been done under the assumption that the specific combining ability (sca) is negligible. A methodology has been developed by Varghese et al. (2016) for estimating gca effects free from sca effects under a row-column set-up for Type III complete diallel mating designs. Also, developed a class of Mating-Environmental Row-Column (MERC) designs which is variance balanced for estimating the contrasts pertaining to gca effects free from sca effects. Here, a program was developed for the generation and randomization of a class of Mating Environmental Row Column(MERC) design with parameters v = , p = q = t, r1(Replication of selfings) =1and r2( Replication of F1’s) = 2 which are variance balanced for estimating elementary contrasts pertaining to general combining ability effects free from specific combining ability effects considering F1’s along with selfings (Griffing’s method III) using SAS IML in the form of a Macro so that user would be able to get the design by providing only number lines (t).