Abstract
Durum wheat is the second most important triticum species next to bread wheat. Ethiopia is one of the centers of diversity for durum wheat. The present study was to determine the interrelationship and direct and indirect effects of yield component traits on grain yield of Ethiopian landraces durum wheat for further breeding activities of yield improvement. Out, 97 durum wheat accessions along with 3 improved varieties were evaluated in 10 x 10 simple lattice design during 2018 main cropping season at Mata Sub site of Haro Sabu Agricultural Research Center. Analysis of variance revealed highly significant differences among accessions for all traits. More than 36% of accessions were superior in mean grain yield than the standard checks. Grain yield exhibited positive and significant correlation both at genotypic and phenotypic level with most of the characters such as plant height (rp = 0.22, rg = 0.25), harvest index (rp=0.79, rg = 0.78), biological yield (rp = 0.31, rg = 0.30), number of kernels per spike (rp = 0.17, rg = 0.21), spike length, (rp = 0.36, rg = 0.39), and hectoliter weight (kg hl -1 ) (rp = 0.44, rg = 0.45). The association between yield, and yield related characters through phenotypic genotypic path coefficients revealed that biological yield, spike length, harvest index and plant height exerted highest positive direct effect on grain yield. This suggests that simultaneous improvement in these characters might be possible Keywords: correlation, direct and indirect effects, durum wheat and path analys DOI : 10.7176/JBAH/9-21-03 Publication date: November 30 th 2019
Highlights
Durum wheat (Triticum durum L.) is a member of the Gramineae family, which belongs to the Triticeae tribe
The association between yield, and yield related characters through phenotypic genotypic path coefficients revealed that biological yield, spike length, harvest index and plant height exerted highest positive direct effect on grain yield
There are two types of wheat grown in Ethiopia and both of them are produced under rainfed conditions: durum wheat, accounting for 40% of production, and bread wheat, accounting for the remaining 60% (Bergh et al, 2012).It is traditionally grown by small-scale farmers on the heavy black clay soils (Vertisols) of the high lands at altitude ranging between 1800 and 2800 meters above sea levels and rainfall distribution varying from 600 to more than 1200 mm per annum (Hailu, 1991)
Summary
Durum wheat (Triticum durum L.) is a member of the Gramineae family, which belongs to the Triticeae tribe. It is an allotetraploid (two genomes: AABB) with 28 chromosomes (2n = 4x =28). The genetic architecture of yield can be resolved better by studying its component characters. This enables the plant breeder to breed for high yielding genotypes with desired combinations of traits (Khan and Dar, 2010). The correlations are very important in plant breeding because of its reflection in dependence degree between two or more traits. Many breeders try to explain the relations between grain yield and agronomic and morphological traits by using simple correlation coefficients. Path coefficients show direct influence of independent variable upon dependent variable (Lidansky, 1988)
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