Jag Shoran, B.S. Tyagi*, Gyanendra Singh and R.P. Singh

Directorate of Wheat Research, Post box 158, Karnal 132001, India

Summary

Using 62 elite durum wheat (Triticum durum) genotypes, genetic variability, character association and cluster analysis were made to mark the diversity for five important economic traits, namely days to heading, maturity duration, plant height, grain yield per plot and thousand grain weight (TGW). The extent of variability, heritability and genetic advance revealed that enough variability existed for these traits. High estimates of heritability coupled with high genetic advance for thousand grain weight indicate that due to presence of additive gene effects direct selection may be effective. For the traits like grain yield and maturity duration, where high heritability with moderate or low genetic advance was recorded, developing transgressive segregants through hybridization is suggested. Significant and positive correlations between days to heading and maturity duration, thousand grain weight and grain yield, suggest that yield improvement in durum wheat might be possible by emphasizing these traits. This study also provide sound base for selecting better parents from different clusters in order to harness the available diversity. The dendrogram was generated on the basis of Euclidean distances adopting the techniques of complete linkage between genotypes. It was tried to maintain the maximum distances between the clusters to pick most diverse parents. The presence of all three checks (released varieties for different agro-climatic zones) in nearby clusters indicated that geographical distribution has no correspondence to genetahic divergence. This also means that there is not much genetic diversity among the released durum varieties for these traits and hence the genotypes from wider clusters must be utilized for yield improvement in durum wheat through hybridization.　

Key words: durum wheat, diversity, cluster analysis, dendrogram, Euclidean distances