Introgression of Productivity Enhancing Genes into Durum Wheat (Triticum Turgidum L Var. Durum) from Tetraploid Progenitor Species

The durum wheat cultivars, PDW 274 and PDW 233, used as recurrent parents, were backcrossed twice with respective donor parents 7. dicoccum (DDK 1017) and T. dicoccoides (Acc.7121G403), to generate BC₂F₂ populatons of cross-l (CI) and cross-ll (Cll), respectively. A wide range of variation was observed for the seven yield components including grain yield traits in BC₂F₂ population of both crosses. Nineteen (CI) and 18 (Cll) progenies were found to be significantly earlier than the recurrent parents in days to anthesis. Most of the progenies (81 in C1 and 72 in Cll) were observed with significantly reduced plant height as compared to their recurrent parents. For tillers per plant, 16 (CI) and 17 (Cll) progenies were significantly superior with 12.2 - 93.9% increase over the recurrent parent. Similarly 13 (CI) and 15 (Cll) progenies with 9.2–29.6% increase over the recurrent parents were significantly superior for larger flag-leaf area. Twelve (CI) and 13 (Cll) progenies with 25.3–52.2% increase were observed with significantly higher number of grains per spike as compared to their recurrent parents. Though the 1000-grain weight of the donor parents was very low, yet 4 (CI) and 7 (Cll) progenies with 6.6–23.0% increase were recovered with significantly high grain weight than their recurrent parents. Similarly the grain yield of the donor parents was very low, but 11 (CI) and 13 (Cll) progenies with 18.4–72.1% increase were observed with significantly higher grain yield per plant over the recurrent parents. The results indicate that the donor parents had contributed positive alleles for almost all the productivity traits into durum background.