CAUSE AND EFFECT RELATIONSHIP OF MORPHOLOGICAL ATTRIBUTES WITH YIELD IN A- GENOME WHEAT

Abstract

Wheat considered to be the most important among all cereal crops, is grown across various agro-ecological zones around the globe. It is the main staple food playing a prominent role in the economy of the country as well as in the cropping system. The present study was conducted to estimate genotypic correlations among morphological traits and yield using 50 accessions of diploid wheat including 2 parents and 48 RILs at F7:8 stage to determine direct as well as indirect effects. The results presented here showed that generally the coefficients of genotypical correlation (rg) depicted higher values in comparison to the coefficients of phenotypic correlation (rp). Among the morphological traits contributing to the grain yield, genotypic as well as phenotypic coefficients of correlation have been evaluated. All the traits displayed positive correlation with each other except emergence percentage (EP) that depicted negative interaction with booting time (BT), flowering time (FT) and heading time (HT) phenotypically. Highest estimates of direct effect i.e., 2.1217 on grain yield have been counted for booting time however, maximum indirect effect counted on grain yield was for heading time via booting time.  Therefore, booting time can be successfully employed as an effective trait in the breeding programs focused on increasing wheat yield.