Assessment of Genetic Variability and Direct-Indirect Contribution of Post-Anthesis Traits to the Grain Yield in Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum) at Different Sowing Dates

Abstract

In cotton-wheat cropping system of Pakistan, sowing of wheat is delayed which results in a heavy loss to the farmers. To this end, a two-year field experiment was conducted to i) asses the performance of genotypes under late sowing ii) heritability and genetic association of different traits under normal and late sowing for their use in the breeding programs. Experimental factors included 20 diverse wheat genotypes (16 advance lines and 04 approved varieties) factorially combined with two sowing dates i.e., normal sowing (11 and 13 November in 2018 and 2019, respectively) and late sowing (09 and 11 December in 2018 and 2019, respectively). The results revealed a highly significant (P < 0.01) effect of genotype and sowing date on all the post-anthesis studied traits and the interaction of the two factors was also significant (P < 0.01) for all the traits except number of spikelets per spike. Contribution of sowing dates was more in overall variation of different post-anthesis traits than genotypes and their interaction. With respect to the performance, genotype 9725 performed best in both early and late sowing, but a reduction of 26% in the grain yield was observed due to late sowing, whereas the grain yield of Miraj-2008 was comparatively lower but showed a reduction of only 17% due to late sowing. Number of tillers per plant and biological yield showed a highly significant (P < 0.01) correlation (r= 0.38 and 0.72, respectively) with grain yield under normal conditions, but path analyses revealed that number of tillers per plant showed association indirectly through biological yield and its direct effect is only one third of the total effect. Under late sowing, association of number of tillers turned non-significant and direct effect become negative which showed complicated association of this trait under normal and late sowing. High broad sense heritability (H2 > 75%) of all the traits suggests a good genetic gain in breeding program by using these traits. As different genotypes performed best for different yield related traits, therefore a breeding program with a careful crossing plan should be developed to pyramid the genes for different traits for the development of genotypes adapted to late sowing. © 2021 Friends Science Publishers

Genetic Variability, Heritability and Genetic Advance for Yield and Yield Related Traits of Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Genotypes

“…Based on these categories traits such as days to heading (97.51%), Hectoliter Weight (93.30%), days to maturity (92.60%), biomass yield (91.88%), peduncle length (89.17%), grain yield (86.87%), Thousand Kernel Weight (86.69%, plant height (85.89%) and yield per head (82.57%) had very high broad sense heritability. Similar result were documented that high estimates of heritability for days to heading, days to maturity and plant height (Rajput et al, 2019, Upadhyay et al, 2019, and 1000 kernel weight (Fikre et al, 2015, Kabir et al, 2017, biomass yield (Muhammad et al, 2017;Atinafu et al, 2020, Sami et al, 2021 and also high heritability was noticed for peduncle length ( Upadhyay et al, 2019). similarly high heritability for biomass yield and grain yield (Sami et al, 2021) and high heritability for yield head -1 (Mohant et al, 2016) and for peduncle length (Muhammad et al, 2017, Muhammad et al, 2021.…”

“…Similar result were documented that high estimates of heritability for days to heading, days to maturity and plant height (Rajput et al, 2019, Upadhyay et al, 2019, and 1000 kernel weight (Fikre et al, 2015, Kabir et al, 2017, biomass yield (Muhammad et al, 2017;Atinafu et al, 2020, Sami et al, 2021 and also high heritability was noticed for peduncle length ( Upadhyay et al, 2019). similarly high heritability for biomass yield and grain yield (Sami et al, 2021) and high heritability for yield head -1 (Mohant et al, 2016) and for peduncle length (Muhammad et al, 2017, Muhammad et al, 2021.…”

Genetic Analysis in Various Genotypes of Bread Wheat Under Normal and Heat-Stress Environments

“…Bhanu et al ( 2018) also observed a significant positive correlation between plant height and spike length in their study. Ul-Allah et al (2021) identified noteworthy associations between the plant height and a number of spikelets. The remaining traits showed a non-significant association with number of tillers plant -1 (Table 1).…”

Effect of foliar applied zinc sulphate on phenotypic variability, association and heritability of yield and zinc biofortification related traits of wheat genotypes

“…Heritability is essential to study for the degree of transmission of traits to future generations in any breeding program [ 45 , 46 ]. Although high broad-sense heritability for almost all the traits were observed under all fertilization conditions, there were some differences which might be due to variation in the variability under different fertilization conditions.…”