Tissue culture and agronomic traits relationship in wheat

There are only a few reports about the relationship between tissue culture and agronomic traits in wheat. In an attempt to enlarge the knowledge in this area, 96 wheat genotypes of worldwide origin were evaluated for their tissue culture response as well as the agronomic performance in the three-year field trials. Plant regeneration was achieved from immature embryos collected 12-15 days after anthesis. Associations between tissue culture and agronomic traits were surveyed by the correlation and path coefficient analyses. A trait-association by year biplot was applied to understand environmental effects on these relationships. All significant trait-associations were of a moderate magnitude and were responsive to the environment. The path coefficient analysis revealed that a grain yield had the highest positive direct effect on a callus formation while the kernel number per spike had the highest positive direct effect on regenerative calli and plant number per embryo. Nevertheless, only productive tillering had significant (positive) direct effect on all studied tissue culture traits.