Genetic Variation of Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Varieties Based on Phenological, Morphological and Quality Traits at Guay Kebele in Debre Elias District, East Gojjam Zone, Northwestern Ethiopia

Abstract

Genetic variation study was conducted at Guay Kebele, D/Elias district in 2018/19, to select superior varieties of bread wheat on farmer’s field. Ten alternative bread wheat varieties including standard check were evaluated under rain fed conditions using a randomized complete block design with three replications. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) of phenological, agronomic and quality traits indicated the presence of significant (P<0.05) variation in protein content and harvest index while, days to 50% emergence, days to 75% heading, days to maturity, plant height, effective tiller, spikelet per spike, spike length, grain per spike, biomass yield, grain yield, 1000 kernel weight, hectoliter weight showed highly significant (P<0.01) difference. Abola (3.99ton-ha^-1) and Ogoloncho (3.87ton-ha^-1) were the higher yielders over the standard check(Kekeba=3.18ton-ha^-1) and to the other varieties tested. Grain yield revealed strong, positive and highly significant correlation with harvest index (r=0.88**), plant height (r=0.67**), number of effective tillers (r=0.73**), spike length (r=0.74**), spikelet per spike (r=0.70**), number of grain per spike (r=0.80**), biomass yield (r=0.85**), 1000 seed weight (r=0.76**) and hectoliter weight (r=0.83**). The higher genotypic coefficient of variation was observed from thousand kernel weight (79.27%) and the higher phenotypic coefficient of variance was also observed from thousand kernel weight (88.25) and effective tiler weight (26.94%). Spikelet per spike (92.42%), grain yield (80.39%), hectoliter weight (96.6%), plant height (85.49%) and days to physiological maturity (95.7%) had higher heritability with moderate and low genetic advances. Therefore, based on the results of this there were variability among the tested varieties and then Abola and Ogoloncho are recommended for any genetic improvement as well as for production in the study area.

Keywords: Bread wheat, coefficient of variation, correlation, heritability, standard check

DOI: 10.7176/JBAH/9-11-07

Publication date:June 30^th 2019