ACCESSIONS DISSECTION OF WHEAT (TRITICUM AESTIVUM) USING CLUSTER AND PRINCIPAL COMPONENT ANALYSIS

Abstract

A research trial for sixty-two (62) wheat accessions was conducted at Arid Zone Research Centre, D. I. Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan to check variations in germplasm, heritability and genetic advance The experiment was triplicated with randomized complete block design (RCBD) with plot size 18x5m². Data were recorded for days to headings, days to maturity, flag leaf area, plant height, No. of tillers plant^-1, peduncle length, spike length, spikelet spike^-1, No. of grains spike^-1, grain yield plant^-1, 1000-grains weight and further subjected to Analysis of Variation (ANOVA) and Least Significant Differences amongst the means to check the significant at 5% probability level. For phenotypic and genotypic correlation high magnitude of (71.19%) was recorded in spike density and lowest in plant height (1.89%). Whereas for GCV maximum was noted for spike length (14.64%). Maximum Hbs and GA was estimated in plant height with values (98.06%) and (35.95%) respectively. Whereas the trait spikelets spike^-1 exhibited minimum values for Hbs (26.29%) and GA (1.46%). High heritability means the trait Plant height is additively controlled.  The grain yield plant^-1 was higher in peduncle length, tillers plant^-1, thousand grain weight, grain number spike^-1 and spike density. Grain yield plant^-1 was recorded as highest by genotypes in Cluster-I and Cluster-IV. Principal component analysis presented an eigen value of greater than 1 for first four components and contributed to 73% of total variation while important yield related attributes were highest in PC1 and PC2.