Association analysis of different wheat genotypes for heat tolerance for yield and its attributing characters

Wheat (Triticum sp.) is the most widely grown cereal crop in the world and provides food for 36% of global population. However, its average productivity is lower (2.67 t/ha) in this state like West Bengal as compared to national average. This is mainly due to late sowing and crop is exposed to heat stress from flowering to maturity period. Therefore, breeding for heat tolerant is one of the most important aspects of this particular crop in our state for sustainable development. Under this circumstances, a total 30 genotypes were taken under study and evaluated in three environmental conditions (timely sown, late sown and very late sown). The experimental results showed high heritability coupled with moderate to high genetic advance was observed for the traits like tillers/plant, tillers/m2, chlorophyll content, biomass, 1000 grain weight and yield/plant indicated these traits were governed by additive gene over three environments. Significant positive associationship with yield/plant was observed in tillers/plant, number of grains/spike, pollen fertility and 1000 grain weights both at genotypic and phenotypic levels. The multivariate analysis designated that genotypes HTSBWYT-17-004, HTSBWYT-17-0020, HTSBWYT-17-0027 and HTSBWYT-17-0049 were divergent, high mean yield/plant and superior for most of the traits relation with HSI (