Estimation of genetic variability parameters for various qualitative and quantitative traits in bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L. EM. Thell)

Abstract

The present investigation was carried out during Rabi 2017-2018 at Norman E. Borlaug Crop Research Centre, G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand. The experimental material comprised of 17 parental genotypes (14 lines, 3 testers) and 42 F1 hybrids, obtained after crossing them in a line × tester fashion with the objective to study genetic variability parameters for various qualitative and quantitative traits. The experiment was carried out in Randomized Block Design (RBD) with three replications and observations were recorded on various qualitative and quantitative characters. In general, PCV was higher than GCV for all the characters studied. GCV was higher than ECV for most of the characters. The magnitude of PCV and GCV was highest for phenol color reaction followed by number of effective tillers per plant and number of grains per spike. High heritability was observed for grain yield per plant, grain weight per spike and biological yield per plant. High genetic advance as percent of mean was found for phenol color reaction, number of effective tillers per plant and number of grains per spike. High heritability with high genetic advance is helpful for improvement through mass selection by fixing additive gene action, while high heritability with low genetic advance showed the preponderance of non-additive gene action due to high influence of environment.