Analysis of Genetic Variability, Correlation and Path for Yield and Its Attributing Traits in Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

Abstract

The current study was undertaken to analyze the genetic variability, correlation and path for yield and its attributing traits at agriculture research farm, Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, School of Agriculture, Lovely Professional University, Punjab during during Rabi 2021-22 and 2022-23. Augmented design with F2 seeds planted in ear to row fashion in 4 rows were used to study variability, correlation and path including 2 parent and its 6 F2’s  for the 9 traits viz. plant height, spike length, number of tillers per plant, number of spikes per plant, number of spikelets per ear, number of grains per ear, biological yield, harvest index and grain yield.  Finding revealed that grain yield revealed positive and highly significant correlation with number of tillers per plant (rp= 0.8387, rg= 0.8709) and biological yield (rp= 0.9671, rg= 0.9965) while positive and significant correlation with Number of spikes per plant (rp= 0.7168, rg= 0.7253) at both phenotypic and genotypic level. Biological yield per plant revealed highest positive direct effect (1.0642, 0.8700) with significant association with grain yield (0.9965, 0.9671) whereas Number of tillers reveals least positive direct effect on grain yield (0.0183, 0.0834) at both genotypic and phenotypic level. PCV was higher than GCV for all the traits indicated an influence of environment over the traits. Number of spikelets per ear recorded highest PCV and GCV followed by Grain yield. Heritability (h2b) found higher for grain yield (84.2) followed by Number of spikelets per ear (83.4), Number of Grains per ear (82.7) and Plant height (80.1). Genetic advance (GA) recorded higher Number of spikelets per ear (35.07) followed by Grain yield (11.93). Moderate GA recorded for Plant Height (7.67) and Biological yield (6.88) whereas Spike length (0.62) recorded lowest GA. Hence, selection for these mentioned characters could bring improvement in yield and yield components.