Genetic and breeding study of number of grains per spike in durum wheat

Rangel Dragov

Abstract: One of the major methods to increase productivity of crops is through plant breeding improving on varieties. The number of grains per spike is an important quantitative attribute in plant breeding of durum wheat and is directly related to the yield. For the genetic nature and inheritance of the trait number of grains per spike is done diallel cross featuring five modern durum wheats. Analysis of variance showed significant differences between genotypes. Genetic parameters and indicators (by Hayman, 1954) and general and specific combining ability (by Griffing, 1956) are calculated on this basis. The results show predominant non-additive gene effects over additive gene effects. This shows that effective selection for number of grains per spike should start in the later generations. Here have established good combiners which contain genes with additive effects to increase the number of kernel per spike. In our range of varieties 2-3 genes take part in control of number of grains per spike in durum wheat. It was found that the increase in number of grain per spike is associated with the accumulation of dominant genes. Coefficient of heritability in broad (H2) and narrow (h2) sense is calculated by the method of Mather and Jinks (1982). Received high coefficients of heritability in the broad sense indicate the possibility of conducting an effective selection of genotype by phenotype. Prevailing low coefficients of heritability in the narrow sense show that the selection have to start in later generations (F4-F5).

Keywords: diallel analysis; durum wheat; grain number per spike; plant breeding

Date published: 2017-07-25