Heritability and Interrelationship between Various Quality Characters in Bread Wheat

Sixteen varieties of wheat representing a cross section of strong, as well as weak, genotypes from Indian and Mexican germplasm and a set of fifty-one segregating lines derived from crosses made between these in different combinations were studied.

Correlation studies revealed that thousand kernel weight was, in general, negatively correlated with all characters but flour recovery, with which it was positively and significantly correlated. The DBC value and the sedimentation value were positively correlated. However, various quality characters were not correlated with morphological characters, such as leaf width, ear length and tiller number.

Heritability estimates, based on parent-offspring regressions, varied considerably from character to character. A maximum value of 96.3% was obtained for the thousand kernel weight based on F₄/F₃ regression and a minimum value of 26.7% for DBC value based on F₅/F₄ regression.

It is indicated from the present study that DBC could be used to screen the breeding material for the nutritive quality of protein in as early as F₂ generation. However, the heritablity for this character being low, larger populations would be required for effective genetic advance.