A new look at Jinks-Hayman's method for the estimation of genetical components in diallel crosses

A new interpretation of the assumption which states that genes are independently distributed across the parents leads to the construction of new estimates of the genetical components D, H1, H2 and F. Simulation experiments are used to compare the new estimates with the classical ones and with an improved (unbiased) version of those estimates. The new estimates show a better behaviour than their competitors in terms of bias and mean square deviation, especially for small diallels.