Effectiveness of individual plant selection in early generations of bread wheat

Reliability of individual plant selection was tested for graln yield, plant height, effective tillers, total dry matter, grain per spike, kernel weight and harvest index in five F₂ populations of bread wheat. Plants were selected for each of the seven charaders in positive and negative directions in F₂ generation and selection response was measured in F₃ generation. Inter-generation correlation coefficients and realized heritability estimates were also computed for all the seven characters in the five F₂'s. Individual plant selection for plant height and for kernel weight was found to be effective while, it was ineffective for the remaining characters.