Genetic Variability, Heritability, Genetic Advance and Divergence Analysis in Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

Background: Wheat is a cereal crop that is widely farmed across the world and ranks first in global crop production. Wheat cultivation is the world’s most important food crop.The assessment of genetic divergence existing in the germplasm collections is very important to select genetically divergent parents for hybridization in a transgressive breeding programme for development of high yielding wheat varieties coupled with quality, multiple resistance and wider adaptability. Methods: The experiment on 21genotypes including two checks viz., HD 2967 and PBW 824 was conducted to work out the genetic variability, heritability, genetic advance and divergence analysis for yield and yield contributing traits in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). The experiment was laid out in randomised block design (RBD) during Rabi, 2021-2022 at Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab. Result: The analysis of variance revealed mean sum of square due to genotypes were significant for all the characters indicating sufficient genetic variability among the genotypes. The magnitude of PCV and GCV were moderate for grain yield per plant and harvesting index, which suggests greater phenotypic and genotypic variance among the genotypes and responsiveness of the attributes for making further improvement by selection and indicating limited scope for improvement. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance observed for harvest-index thus these characters show additive gene action in their expression. In divergence analysis, maximum intra-cluster distance exhibited by cluster 2 followed by cluster 1among the different genotypes. The maximum inter-cluster distance between cluster 2 and 3 followed by cluster 2 and 7 and the minimum inter cluster distance was recorded between cluster 5 and 6 followed by cluster 1 and 3. It indicated that for crop improvement in wheat diversified genotypes may be selected from cluster 2 and cluster 3 to received maximum transgressive recombinants from segregating generations.