Characters Association of Some Quantitative Traits with Grain Yield in Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) under Sodic Soil Condition

The experimental materials comprised of 139 treatments (15 lines, 4 testers, 60 F1,s and 60 F2, s.) of wheat were grown at MES, Narendra Deva University of Agriculture and Technology, Narendra Nagar, Faizabad (U.P.) under sodic soil condition during Rabi 2012–13 to study characters association of quantitative traits with grain yield. Seed yield per plant had significant and positive association with biological yield per plant (0.989) followed by number of effective tillers per plant (0.915), number of grains per spike (0.824), number of spikelets per spike (0.582), days to maturity (0.525), days to 50% flowering (0.235) and harvest index (0.218) but it had significant negative association with plant height (−0.192). The estimates of genotypic correlation coefficient were generally, similar in sigh or nature but higher in magnitude than the corresponding phenotypic correlation coefficient. Grain yield per plant had strong and positive association with biological yield per plant followed by number of effective tillers per plant, number of grains per spike, number of spikelets per spike and days to maturity at phenotypic and genotypic level. Thus biological yield per plant followed by number of effective tillers per plant, number of grains per spike, number of spikelets per spike and days to maturity emerged as most important and strongest associate of grain yield across diverse environment. The study revealed that greater emphasis should be given to these characters for yield improvement.