Heritability and Inheritance of Plant Height, Heading Date and Grain Yield in Four Spring Wheat Crosses1

Abstract

F1, F2, and backcross populations from four spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) crosses involving tall and short varieties were analysed to determine inheritance patterns of plant height, heading date, and grain yield in wheat. In all popnlations the three characters were quantitatively inherited; and relative to the better parents, there occurred substantial heterosis for tall plant stature and higher grain yield, but for heading date the Fl's approached the midparent and did not exceed the early parent. Both narrow‐ and broad‐sense heritabilities were computed for these characters. The narrow‐sense estimates were smaller than the corresponding broadsense values in all the crosses.