Genetic Diversity in Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) for morpho-physiological traits and grain micronutrient content
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Date
2020
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DRPCAU, Pusa
Abstract
Wheat (Triticum spp.) is considered as one key staple food crop in numerous places of our globe not only in terms of the area under cultivation but as a source of food also. It covers all the continents of the globe, engaging 17% of the world acreage of crops and feeds almost 40% population globally. More than 3 billion population worldwide roughly, experiences the malnutrition problems. Malnutrition of micronutrient, predominantly the deficiency in Zinc and Iron worldwide afflicts more than three billion people. Since the Green Revolution, the yields of cereal grains worldwide have been boosted spectacularly, but cereal-based diet falls petite to provide adequate nutrients. Plant breeding can be employed as a potent weapon against the evil named 'hidden hunger'. The genetic diversity of various crops has drastically been wrinkled with the domestication and courses of breeding. Consequently, recognizing the precious alleles which are forsaken in the wild relatives of the crops and re-establishing them into the crops which are under cultivation is one of the most vital objectives of the activities of modern plant breeding. Keeping all the above considerations insight, the current evaluation of genetic diversity in bread wheat was performed for morpho-physiological traits and grain micronutrient content.
The experiment was conducted by taking 30 bread wheat genotypes in the experimental area of Wheat Breeding section of Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University (DRPCAU), Pusa, Samastipur, Bihar during the Rabi season of 2019-20. The study was executed on genetic variability, genetic advances, correlation coefficients, path coefficients and diversity among genotypes. Observations were documented for fifteen characters viz. plant height, flag leaf area, no. of tillers/plant, relative water content, spike length, canopy temperature, chlorophyll content, days to fifty percent flowering, thousand-grain weight, no. of grains/ ear, harvest index, days to maturity, grain yield/ plant, grain Fe and grain Zn content. The evaluation was accomplished in a RBD with three replications.
ANOVA revealed significant differences among all the evaluated genotypes for all the studied parameters. Effect of the environment was extremely meagre on the expressions of almost all the traits. Heritability along with genetic advance estimates revealed that the characters namely, grain Zn content, grain Fe content, flag leaf area, no. of tillers/ plant and number of grains/ ear demonstrated high heritability in addition to high genetic advance as percent of the mean. Correlation analysis demonstrated a significant positive relationship of days to fifty percent flowering, no. of tillers/plant, flag leaf area, spike length, plant height, chlorophyll content, relative water content, no. of grains/ ear, thousand-grain weight, days to maturity and harvest index, with grain yield/ plant except canopy temperature which showed a significant negative relationship. The total 30 bread wheat genotypes under investigation were grouped into nine clusters. Cluster II included eight genotypes which were the highest followed by Cluster I, IV and VII containing 6, 6 and 5 genotypes respectively. However, the rest five clusters namely, III, V, VI, VIII and IX cluster were solitary. The utmost inter-cluster distance was noted between the clusters VII and IX and the least inter-cluster distance was noted between the clusters V and VI. Genotypes RAUW-18-15, RAUW-18-21, DBW 16, BHU 25, RAUW-16-4 were recorded genetically diverse having the highest intra-cluster distance. The highest contribution in manifesting genetic divergence was revealed by grain Fe content, followessd by grain Zn content, days to fifty percent flowering, 1000-grain weight, grain yield per plant, number of grains/ ear. This means it may be rewarding to execute selection for these traits.