CLUSTER ANALYSIS, GENOTYPIC AND PHENOTYPIC CORRELATION AMONG YIELD CONTRIBUTING TRAITS IN BREAD WHEAT (Triticum aestivum L.) GERMPLASM

Wheat is the world's second main source of food energy and nutrition. Sixty different genotypes and two bread wheat cultivars i.e. Gomal-08 and Hasham-08 were used in this study. Randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications were used. Results showed that Grain yield plant(-1) has highly significant positive correlation with days to maturity, number of tillers plant(-1), peduncle length, number of grains spike(-1) and 1000grains weight, while spikelets spike(-1) had significant positive correlation with grain yield plant(-1) at both phenotypic and genotypic levels. Significant positive correlation were observed between flag leaf area and grain yield plant(-1) at phenotypic level. Grain yield plant(-1) showed significant negative correlation with days to 50 % heading and spike density at phenotypic level while the same two parameters had highly significant negative association with grain yield plant(-1) at genotypic level. The 60 genotypes were separated into six distinct cluster by keeping 10 as linkage distance. According to this comparison, Cluster-III is important for number of tillers plant(-1), plant height, number of spikelets spike(-1), grain yield plant(-1) and 1000-grain weight because these characters showed their highest value in this cluster. Number of grains spike(-1) and spike length showed their highest values in cluster-VI and hence can be preferred for the given parameter. Such study can be helpful in breeding programs for wheat improvement.