Correlation and factor analysis of grain yield and some important component characters in spring bread wheat genotypes

Abstract

In order to evaluate several agro-morphological traits in 21 spring bread wheat genotypes, an experiment based on randomized complete block design with three replications was carried out in two locations during three years (2008- 2011).The traits including grain yield(GY), biological yield (BY), spike weight (SW), grain weight per spike(GWS), harvest index (HI), spike length (SL), spikelet per spike (SPS), number of grain per spike (NGS), number of spike per square meter (SPM), 1000-grain weight (GW), plant height (PH), stem straw weight (SSW), spike straw weight (SRW) were evaluated. The result of combined analysis of variance revealed that years, genotypes and their interaction effects were significant for all the traits. Location had significant difference for all the traits except SL and SPS. GY was significant correlated with BY (0.72**), SW (0.75**), GWS (0.69**), NGS (0.59**), SSW (0.62**) and SRW (0.66**). Factor analysis was used for understanding the data structure and trait relations. The factor analysis divided the thirteen traits into three factors. The cumulative variation for these factors was 0.76 and also it’s portions for factor one to three were 0.59, 0.16 and 0.06, respectively. In the first factor, the traits including GY, BY, SW, GWS, SPS, NGS and SSW had high factor loadings. The traits compromise HI, SSW and SRW had high factor loadings in second factor and also SPM, GW and PH had high values of factor loadings in third factor. The genotypes including Morvarid, N-80-19 and N-85-14 had high mean values of grain yield. The genotypes had high genetic coefficient variation for SRW, BY, SW and GY, therefore the efficiency of selection of the genotypes for improving these traits will be high.