Genetic Appraisal of Wheat Progenies for Grain Yield and Yield Attributing Traits

The present investigation was carried out in F3 and F4 progenies of wheat to study gene interactions and its attributing traits during the Rabi season of 2014-15 and 2015-16. The crop was grown in research area of Wheat and Barley Section, Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar. Most of the traits were studied positively skewed and were being governed by several genes indicating quantitative inheritance. Skewness and kurtosis indicated dominance based complementary gene interaction involving large number of genes having decreasing effect in the inheritance of plant height, spike length, number of grains per spike, 1000 grain weight and biological yield per plant in both the progenies However, duplicate interaction was observed for grain length, number of spikelets per spike, grain yield per plant and harvest index in both the progenies, hence, genetic gain will be rapid under mild selection. Grain yield per plant and associated traits showed platykurtic distribution indicated the involvement of few genes in inheritance of these traits. This indicates that selection could be practiced for these component traits to increase grain yield per plant. Hence, as a concluding remark based on measures of shape in both F3 and F4, progenies directional selection will effectively enhance the performance of these yield attributing traits.