5. Assessment of genetic variability and heritability for grain yield and its associated traits in F2 populations of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

Abstract

The current research was carried out to determine the genetic variability and heritability for grain yield and its associated traits of six F₂ bread wheat segregating populations originated from seven parental varieties at the experimental field of Southern Wheat Research Station, ARI, Tandojam, Sindh. The experiment was carried out in randomized complete block design with three replications for plant height (cm), tillers plant^-1, spike length (cm), spikelets spike^-1, grains spike^-1, grain weight of main spike (g), grain yield plant^-1 (g), seed index (g), biological yield plant^-1 (g) and harvest index (%). Many variation were observed in all the studied traits giving an evidence of the crop improvement. The result regarding analysis of variance, all the genotypes, parents and hybrids displayed highly significant and significant differences for the all the attributes at 0.01% and 0.05% probability level. Among the F₂ hybrids, the cross Khirman x TD-1 was best (92.76%) in the contribution of heritability for plant height. Kiran-95 x Marvi-2000 performed notably for tillers plant^-1 (83.51%), spike length (88.69%), spikelets spike^-1 (95.62%), grains spike^-1 (87.90%), grain weight of main spike (91.99%), grain yield plant^-1 (94.13%), seed index (88.03%) and harvest index (89.12%). In case of biological yield plant^-1 (85.21%), the cross Bakhar-2002 x TD-1 (85.21%) was the highest heritability contributor. It is concluded that these hybrids may be the best choices for the exploitation of heritability and hybrid crop development in bread wheat or selection of desirable plants from later segregating generation.

Keywords: Bread wheat;F₂ populations; Genetic variability; Genetic advance; Heritability

http://dx.doi.org/10.19045/bspab.2020.90005