Gene Effects for Six Metric Traits in Four Spring Wheat Crosses

To study the nature and magnitude of gene effects for six metric traits in four spring wheat crosses, additive-dominance model and digenic interaction model were chosen. The dominance gene effects were more important than additive gene effects in almost all cases which showed presence of both kinds of gene effects. Epistasis was indkatd in 12 out of 24 cases. The additive × dominance interaction (J) was a minor component of epistasis. Presence of trigenic or higher order interactions or linked digenics was indicated for tillers and grain yield/plant in cross HD 2122 × Sonalika. Epistasis played a big role in the control of plant height, tillers/plant and grain yield than in the control of the remaining three characters. The crosses WL 711 × HD 1981 and WG 377 × HD 1925 can provide better opportunities for improvement through simple selection procedures than the remaining two crosses.