Characterization of Bread Wheat Genotypes Using Spike Related Traits for Sustainable Yield Potential

Abstract

Wheat is a cereal that is majorly consumed around the world. There is a dire need for the advancement of wheat cultivars that are producing high yield. The experiment was conducted to characterize the spike related traits of wheat genotypes. Twenty wheat genotypes comprising three replications were experimented using randomized complete block design. The difference was significant among the studied twenty genotypes revealed by analysis of variance. Correlation Pearson’s revealed that the number of grains per spike (GPS) has positive relationship among all the studied traits such as the number of tillers per plant (NTP), spike weight (SWT), spike length (SL), and grain yield per plant (GYP). The GYP has a strong positive association with GPS (0.81**), GYS (0.78**), and SL (0.68**). The biological yield had a non-significant association with GYS (0.28) and GPS (0.13). All studied attributes have variations in the mean values which were represented by Radar analysis. The genotype Sadiq-21 was the best performing genotype among the SWT, GYS and BY followed by genotype Nawab-21 which performed best among the NTP, GYS and GPS and genotype Ghazi-19 which performed good among BY, SWT and GPS. The genotypes that were among the worst performing were Suren-10, Galaxy-13 and Borluag-16. The result of our study showed grain yield was mainly affected by NTP, GYS and GPS. For the improvement of wheat yield, these attributes must be improved for selection so that the yield of the wheat can be increased because these have a strong association with the grain yield.