Inheritance Studies in Segregating Population of Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

Abstract

The experimental material of present study comprised of 127 treatments and 4 check varieties in augmented design conducted during rabi season (2022) in research field of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, India. Observations were recorded for days to 50% heading, days to maturity, plant height, number of productive tillers per plant, ear length, number of spikelets per ear, ear weight, number of grains per ear, test weight, biological yield per plant, harvest index, chlorophyll content and grain yield per plant.  Analysis of variance disclosed that treatments and check varieties are highly significant for all the characters. Phenotypic coefficient of variation noted higher magnitude than genotypic coefficient of variation for all the traits. Heritability combined with genetic advance as percent of mean is noted high for grain yield per plant, biological yield per plant, number of productive tillers per plant, ear weight, harvest index, test weight, ear length, number of spikelets per ear, number of grains per ear and plant height. The correlation coefficient assessed positive and highly significant for biological yield per plant, number of productive tillers per plant, harvest index, ear weight, plant height, test weight and ear length. Grain yield per plant recorded positive significant association with biological yield per plant (0.7816), number of productive tillers per plant (0.7051), harvest index (0.527), ear weight (0.4076), plant height (0.3632), test weight (0.3222), and ear length (0.2439), whereas negatively significantly associated with days to 50% heading (-0.4019) and days to maturity (-0.4019). The findings from path analysis unveiled that the maximum direct effect was noted for biological yield per plant, harvest index, number of spikelets per ear, number of productive tillers per plant, ear weight, days to 50% heading, test weight and days to maturity. Out of thirteen traits, eight traits exhibited direct positive effect on grain yield such as biological yield per plant (0.8282), harvest index (0.6061), number of spikelets per ear (0.107), number of productive tillers per plant (0.0191), ear weight (0.0138), days to 50% heading (0.011), test weight (0.0088), and days to maturity (0.0001).