M.B. KUMBHAR and A.S. LARIK
Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Sind Agriculture University, Tandojam, Pakistan
Sufficient understanding of the mode of inheritance of quantitative traits is essential to develop an efficient breeding strategy for a crop. Though, individual gene effects are difficult to precisely measure quantitative traits, statistical tools are available to obtain information on such genes as a whole, in terms of heritability of the trait. Thus, knowledge of heritability of a character helps the plant breeder in predicting the behaviour of the succeeding generations and making desirable selection. The higher the heritabilities the simpler the selection process and the greater the response to selection. Estimation of correlation helps in the identification of the components of a complex character such as yield. LARIK et al. (1987), UDDIN & JOARDER (1986) and SHAHID MASOOD & CHAUDHRY (1987) have reported useful information on heritability and genetic advance of yield and other agronomic traits of bread wheat. They utilized these parameters for selecting high yielding genotypes of wheat.
The present investigation was undertaken to estimate the magnitude of heritability, genetic advance and correlation in wheat populations derived from intercultivaral hybridization.
Material and Methods
Seeds of four parents (Pak-70, HD-2009, Z.A.-77 and Macozari) along with F1 seeds of their crosses were grown during winter 1986 - 87 in non-replicated plots at the Agriculture Research Institute, Tandojam, Pakistan. The plots had 5m long 3 rows at a distance of 30 cm with a total of 153 plants per population. Standard cultural practices were followed throughout the growing season. Four yield components were recorded on 50 randomly selected plants in each entry.
Estimation of broad sense heritability and expected genetic advance with a selection intensity of 5% and correlations were computed similar to SOOMRO and LARIK (1981) as under:
where h = heritability, V = variance, F2 = second filial generation, P = parent. Genetic advance was culculated as under:
GA = (K) (Op) (H)
where K = 2.06 selection differential at 5%, Op = phenotypic standard deviation and H = heritability coefficient.