HERITABILITY ESTIMATES IN F2 SEGREGATING POPULATION IN HEXAPLOID WHEAT (TRITICUM AESTIVUM L.)

Abstract

An investigation was undertaken to evaluate heritability and variability estimates among F2 populations of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Twenty-two wheat genotypes including twelve parents and ten F2 crosses were grown in the field according to Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. The outcomes from the analysis of variance depicted that the genotypes, parents, crosses, and parents versus crosses were highly significant for flag leaf area, peduncle length, plant height, tillers plant-1 and grain yield plant-1. The mean performances of the parents and F2 populations for the traits studied revealed that the parent genotype Tufan performed best regarding flag leaf area-1, spikelets spike-1 and grain yield plant-1. Kiran-95 showed maximum peduncle length. and maximum tillers plant-1 were produced by TD-1. The cross-combination NARC-2011 x Tufan gave maximum values for flag leaf area, peduncle length, plant height. The overall performances of the F2 crosses for all the traits were way better than their parent genotypes. This suggests that these traits should be considered in selection program for breeding purposes. The results from the components of variance, i.e. phenotypic variance and genotypic variance revealed significant differences among the genotypes for all the traits. The phenotypic variance values were greater than the genotypic variance values indicating the much environmental impact on the expression of the traits studied. High heritability and genetic advance estimates were recorded in majority cases for flag leaf area, peduncle length, plant height, tillers plant-1, grains spike-1, seed index, and grain yield plant-1 Therefore, the cross combinations with high genetic variability and heritability must be considered in future breeding programs