Collection and Characterization of Wheat Germplasm from North-West Himalaya

One hundred and fifty five germplasm accessions of wheat collected from North-Western Himalaya were characterized for qualitative and quantitative traits. The germplasm have shown wide range of variability for all the characters studied. Maximum accessions were found to possess spreading type of growth, late maturity, white ear, awned, amber, semi-hard oblong bold grain, grain size (38–50 g) and medium brush hair length. Results for quantitative traits also reveal a wide range for ear length (6.0–13.8 cm) and thousand grain weight (25–66 g). Seven genotypes were found to possess seedling resistance against 21R55 pathotype of leafrust whereas only two genotypes have shown resistant reaction against 121 R63-1 pathotypes of leaf rust. The data on yield contributing traits reveals the potential of some of the germplasm accessions viz., WLG43, WLG44 and WLG 171 for their utilization in wheat improvement programme.