Genetic Divergence in Bread Wheat F 3 Populations for Morphological and Yield Traits

To study genetic divergence for morphological traits in bread wheat F3 populations, an experiment was conducted comprising 13 F3 populations and 6 parental cultivars during 2011-2012 at Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Agricultural University Peshawar, Pakistan. The experiment was conducted in randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications. Results of the data exhibited significant (P≤0.01) variation among wheat genotypes regarding days to heading, days to maturity, flag leaf area, spikes m -2 , grains spike -1 , grain weight spike -1 , 1000-grain weight and grain yield. Differences among parental (P) cultivars and F3 populations were also highly significant for all the traits. Differences among the P vs F3 were also significant for all the traits except 1000-grain weight. Heritability estimates for all the traits varied between 0.72-0.97. Genetic advance were 2.30 days for days to heading, 2.25 days for days to maturity, 5.54 cm 2 for flag leaf area, 175.22 spikes for spikes m -2 , 12.13 for grains spike -1 , 0.42 g for grain weight spike -1 , 8.81 g for 1000-grain weight and 683.16 kg ha -1 for grain yield. Based on the results of this study, G-98/PS-2004 and PS-2005/FS in