Heritability, phenotypic correlation and path coefficient studies for some agronomic characters in synthetic elite lines of wheat

Current research was conducted with the objective to evaluate the genetic variability for quantitative traits and the direct and indirect contributions of important yield components towards grain yield as well as to identify the characters of utmost importance that may be used as selection criteria in a wheat breeding program. The experimental material consisted of seeds of 95 synthetic elites of wheat. Agronomic characters were recorded including days to heading, flowering, anthesis, physiological maturity, grain filling period, plant height, biomass, number of spikes per plant, number of spikelets per spike, spike length, grain yield, 1000-grain weight and harvest index. According to the obtained results, heritability among the traits, phenotypic correlation and their path coefficients were estimated. Harvest index exhibited highest heritability value of 83.31% while 1000-grain weight showed minimum value of 42.32%. Grain yield correlated positively with flag leaf area, plant height, biomass, number of spikes, spike length, number of spikelets per spike, number of grains per spike, 1000-grain weight and harvest index. Path coefficient analysis indicated that grain yield had a positive direct effect with spike length and number of grains per spike. These traits having a positive direct effect on grain yield can be considered as a suitable selection criteria for evolving high yielding wheat elite genotypes