Selection criterion for improved grain yields in Ethiopian durum wheat genotypes

Wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) is the most important cereal crop grown in the intermediate and highland areas of northeastern Ethiopia. Durum wheat dominates in these areas where water logging is the major production constraint. Because of the predominant problem of water logging coupled with other various biotic and abiotic production hobbling factors, the average productivity of wheat in the northeastern region never exceeds 8.4 ha -1, which is below the national average of 14.4 ha -1 (ECSA, 2002). Screening of wide durum wheat germplasm has been undertaken to improve durum wheat grain yield. But, selection based on the performance of grain yield alone, a polygenically controlled complex character, is usually not very efficient. An experiment was conductedat Geregera testing site of Sirinka Agricultural Research Centre, during the 2003-cropping season with the objective of estimating the associations between yield and yield-related traits and to identify direct and indirect effects of characters for durum wheat grain yield improvement. The experimental material consisted of 44 indigenous durum wheat genotypes, which are randomly taken from the indigenous germplasm collections. Mean sum of squares for all the characters considered showed highly significant differences (