The effectiveness of selection for improved drought tolerance and consumption quality in the progeny of crosses between pea cultivars with semi-leafless (afila) and normal leaves and different origins, respectively, were investigated. After single crosses, parent cultivars and F1, F2 and F3 generations were grown under non-irrigated conditions in the same trials. We created a colour scale from 1 to 9 to measure statistically the shade of seed colour. The tolerance of genotypes against high temperature was measured by the number of pods per plant. The 3:1 segregation
observed in the F2 generation of crosses between semi-leafless and conventional cultivars indicated that the semi-leafless character is determined by a recessive gene. In contrast, the ratios of conventional (Af) and semi-leafless (af) genotypes were 7:1 and 9:1 ratio in the progenies of crosses of Af × af. The genetic progress was effective for improving the seed quality in F3 generation from crosses Af x af where we found that multiple
dominant alleles controlled the orange colour of cotyledons and its high heritability (h2 A=0,63). Selection is more effective in producing the genotypes with high yield and normal leaves if the crosses were made between the western European cultivars such as semi-leafless Profi and Delta used as maternal cultivars and conventional Auralia cultivars. In this case, there were decreases in the consumption quality, such as seed size and shade of colour. The selection based on the seed weight of single plants for increasing drought tolerance seemed to be more effective in F4
strains with normal leaves originated from Czechoslovakian maternal cultivar Y228; however, the genetic progress in the improvement of seed size and colour quality was slow.