IDENTIFICATION OF GOOD COMBINER AND STUDY OF HETEROSIS IN INDIGENOUS VARIETY OF WHEAT (Triticum aestivum L.) FOR YIELD AND ITS COMPONENT TRAITS

The present experiment was conducted to estimate the magnitude of heterosis and combing ability in a population derived from crosses between indigenous bread wheat genotypes during Rabi season of 2017-18 and 2018-19. 18 F1 progenies were produced after making crosses in 3 tester and 6 lines by using L x T design and sown with compact family randomized block design with three replications at Agricultural Research Farm of School of Agriculture, Lovely Professional University. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed the presence of significant variance for all the traits due to general combining ability (GCA) as well as for specific combining ability (SCA) among the parents for all the traits. Among the parents, HUW 666 and HP 1744 were good general combiners for grain yield and its components traits, similar result were showed for SCA effects in crosses viz., HUW C16 X HP 1744, NL DW 15 X K 68, HS 284 X DL 1532. The crosses HUW C16 X HP 1744, NL DW 15 X HUW 666 and NL DW 15 X K 68 showed maximum significant standard heterosis for yield and its contributing traits, whereas for better parent heterosis (heterobeltiosis) the crosses namely, HUW C16 X HP 1744, NL DW 15 X HUW 666 and HUW C16 X HUW 666 showed maximum significant heterosis for grain yield per plant.