The Exploitation of Genetic Variability and Trait Association Analysis for Diverse Quantitative Traits in Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

The present investigation was conducted using 102 wheat genotypes at Research Farm, College of Agriculture, Gwalior during Rabi 2018-2019 in randomized block design with two replications. A set of 102 wheat genotype were used to estimate genetic variability, correlation coefficients and path coefficients for fourteen yield and its accrediting attributes. A wide range of variation was observed for important yield components. GCV and PCV was recorded highest for biological yield/plant. High heritability accompanied with higher genetic advance for numbers of productive tillers/plants, spike length, weight of spike, numbers of grains/spike, weight of grains/spike, biological yield/plant, grain yield/plant, harvest index and test weight. Genotypic correlation coefficients were found to be higher in magnitude than that of phenotypic correlation coefficients for most of the traits under investigation, which clearly indicated the presence of inherent association among various characters. The genotypic correlation analysis in the present study observed significant positive association for grain yield with five yield contributing characters viz., numbers of productive tillers/plant, biological yield/plant, weight of grains/spike, weight of spike and numbers of grain/spike. Thus, selection for these characters would be directly follow the immediate improvement of the grain yield for wheat crop. Analysis of phenotypic path coefficient for various traits on grain yield disclosed highest positive direct effect on grain yield for numbers of productive tillers/plant tracked by biological yield/plant, weight of grains/spike, test weight, harvest index, numbers of grains/spike and numbers of spikelets/spike. Whilst, highest positive indirect effect on grain yield was documented for biological yield per plant via numbers of productive tillers/plants. Henceforward, these traits must be given weightage in selection for the improvement of wheat in future breeding programmes.