Assessment of Diversity and Association between Agronomic and Quality Traits in an Assortiment of Durum Wheat Genotypes

The investigation included 24 durum wheat genotypes – varieties and breeding lines of different origin – Bulgaria - Field Crops Institute – Chirpan, Europe, CYMIT-Mexico and ICARDA-Syria. All genotypes were grown in field conditions in the competitive variety trials in three repetitions in harvesting years 2014/2016 and were analyzed for agronomically important traits and traits associated with grain quality. For statistical processing of the data were used variation analysis, analysis of variance and principle component analysis – PCA. Significant diversity of the studied traits based on the variation coefficients was found. In regard to the agronomic traits the greatest variation was determined for: yield, kernel weight per spike and kernel number per spike. For quality traits the highest variation was recorded for: SDS-value, gluten softening, bug damage degree. Correlation between some agronomic and quality traits was found, too. Based on the PC analysis the studied genotypes are divided into different groups. To the group with the highest SDS sedimentation belong 2 foreign varieties, 3 Bulgarian varieties and 3 breeding lines. The group characterized by the highest content of protein and wet gluten comprises 4 foreign varieties and the group with the highest yield includes 6 breeding lines.