Interrelationship Studies Among Grain Yield and its Component Characters in Wheat (Tricticum aestivum L.)

Twenty four genotypes of bread wheat (T. aestivum L) evaluated for yield and other characters were evaluated at research experiment centre of the Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Allahabad School of Agriculture, SHIATS, during Rabi, 2009–10 for thirteen quantitative characters. Significant variation were recorded for, spike length, harvest index, effective tillers per plant, test weight, flag leaf width and flag leaf length. A perusual of coefficient of variation showed that PCV was higher than GCV for all the characters studied indicating less effect of environment on the expression of these characters. The phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variation (PCV and GCV) was high for tillers per square meter followed by harvest index, biological yield number of grains per spike and flag leaf length. High estimates of heritability coupled with high genetic advance were observed for number of tillers per square meter, number of grains per spike and biological yield indicating that additive gene effect and chance of selection for the improvement of grain yield. Grain yield exhibited positive and significant correlation with effective tillers per plant, harvest index and test weight at phenotypic level and genotypic level. Path coefficient analysis revealed that test weight had highest positive effect followed by spike length, grains per spike, harvest index, flag leaf width, days to 50% flowering and tillers per square meter. Therefore, due to emphasis should be given on these characters while, selecting and exploiting for high grain yield.