Abstracto

Heritability, Trait Association and Path Coefficient Studies for Some Agronomic Characters in Synthetic Elite Lines of Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Under Rainfed Conditions

Muhammad Zeeshan, Waheed Arshad, Muhammad Imran Khan, Shiraz Ali, Ali Nawaz and Muhammad Tariq

50 synthetic elite lines of wheat were evaluated to their genetic variability, heritability for quantitative traits and the direct and indirect contributions of important yield components towards grain yield to identify the characters of utmost importance that may be used as selection criteria in a wheat breeding program. The experimental material consisted of. Agronomic characters were recorded including days to heading, days to flowering, days to anthesis, days to physiological maturity, grain filling period, plant height, plant biomass, number of spikes / plant, number of spikelets /spike, spike length, harvest index, 1000-grain weight and grain yield / plant. Harvest index exhibited highest heritability value of 83.31% while 1000-grain weight showed minimum value of 42.32%. Grain yield correlated positively with flag leaf area, plant height, biomass, number of spikes, spike length, number of spikelets / spike, number of grains / spike, 1000-grain weight and harvest index. Path coefficient analysis indicated that grain yield had a positive direct effect with spike length and number of grains per spike. The traits having a positive direct effect on grain yield can be considered as a selection criteria for evolving high yielding wheat elite genotypes.