Correlations and Path Analysis of Some Quantitative and Qualitative Characters in Durum Wheat (Triticum turgidum L.) Accessions in Western Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract

Durum wheat is the second most important triticum species next to bread wheat. Ethiopia is one of the centers of diversity for durum wheat. The present study was to determine the interrelationship and direct and indirect effects of yield component traits on grain yield of Ethiopian landraces durum wheat for further breeding activities of yield improvement. Out, 97 durum wheat accessions along with 3 improved varieties were evaluated in 10 x 10 simple lattice design during 2018 main cropping season at Mata Sub site of Haro Sabu Agricultural Research Center. Analysis of variance revealed highly significant differences among accessions for all traits. More than 36% of accessions were superior in mean grain yield than the standard checks. Grain yield exhibited positive and significant correlation both at genotypic and phenotypic level with most of the characters such as plant height (rp = 0.22, rg = 0.25), harvest index (rp=0.79, rg = 0.78), biological yield (rp = 0.31, rg = 0.30), number of kernels per spike (rp = 0.17, rg = 0.21), spike length, (rp = 0.36, rg = 0.39), and hectoliter weight (kg hl^-1) (rp = 0.44, rg = 0.45). The association between yield, and yield related characters through phenotypic genotypic path coefficients revealed that biological yield, spike length, harvest index and plant height exerted highest positive direct effect on grain yield. This suggests that simultaneous improvement in these characters might be possible

Keywords: correlation, direct and indirect effects, durum wheat and path analys

DOI: 10.7176/JBAH/9-21-03

Publication date: November 30^th 2019