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COMBINING ABILITY ESTIMATES OF SOME YIELD AND QUALITY RELATED TRAITS IN SPRING WHEAT (TRITICUM AESTIVUM L.)

ZAHID AKRAM¹, SAIF ULLAH AJMAL¹, KHALID SAIFULLAH KHAN², RAHMATULLAH QURESHI³ AND MUHAMMAD ZUBAIR⁴

Abstract: Combining ability effects and variances for yield and quality related traits were carried out in an 8x8 diallel cross of spring wheat. The general combining ability effects were significant for all the characters except days to maturity, whereas specific combining ability effects were significant for most of the characters except grain yield, flag leaf area, number of spikelets spike^-1, protein contents and lysine contents. The part of variance due to SCA was greater than GCA for most of the characters indicating the importance of non-additive gene action. The parental varieties, Chakwal 97 and Kohistan 97, proved as the best general combiners for grain yield plant^-1. Shahkar 95 proved to be better combiner for plant height, number of tillers m^-2 and number of grains spike^-1. MH 97 was shown to be the best general combiner for protein contents. The cross Pothowar 93 x Kohistan 97 gave the highest SCA values for 1000 grain weight and protein contents. For grain yield plant^-1 the cross Pak 81 x Kohistan 97 showed maximum SCA values.

¹Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi

²Department of Soil Science, Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi.

³Department of Botany, Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi.

⁴Crop Sciences Institute, National Agricultural Research Centre, Islamabad, Pakistan