Early ground cover and other physiological traits as efficient selection criteria for grain yield under moisture deficit stress conditions in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to study the phenotypic and genotypic variance, heritability, genetic advance, correlation coefficients and path analysis for yield and physiological traits under rainfed condition. High estimates of heritability were recorded for early ground cover, chlorophyll content, flag leaf area, protein percent, and relative water content. Positive and significant correlation were recorded for early ground cover (0.662**), flag leaf area (0.390*), relative water content (0.589**) and canopy temperature depression (0.698**) with grain yield. The path coefficients were studied for all the traits. Early ground cover, flag leaf area, relative water content, canopy temperature depression had positive direct effects on grain yield per plot. Early ground cover, flag leaf area, relative water content and canopy temperature depression had direct positive effect on yield both at genotypic and phenotypic levels across the two environments. This suggests the possibilities of improvement of these characters through selection.