DIALLEL ANALYSIS OF SOME IMPORTANT GRAIN YIELD TRAITS IN BREAD WHEAT CROSSES

One of the most important tasks in a wheat breeding program is the development of high yielding wheat cultivars by crossing the parents with good general combining ability (GCA) and selecting desirable genotypes within its segregating generations for grain yield traits. The objective of this study was to estimate the combining ability and gene action involved in the expression of the traits grain weight per spike and grain weight per plant of wheat in F1 generations, in 5 × 5 half diallel cross of bread wheat varieties (Triticum aestivum L.). The results of applying combining ability analysis indicated that among the parents, genotypes Sara, Pobeda and Renesansa were found to be the best general combiners for the both investigated traits. The best specific crosses for both traits were Sara/Partizanka, Pobeda/Sara, Renesansa/Partizanka, Partizanka/Pesma and Pobeda/Pesma. Most of the specific crosses involved high × high, high × low and low × low general combiners. The results of regression analysis, as well as the analyses of components of genetic variation indicated over-dominance in the inheritance of examined traits suggested that selection in later segregating generations may lead to fairly good improvement in these characters