GENETIC ARCHITECTURE FOR HEAT TOLERANCE IN BREAD WHEAT (TRITICUM AESTIVUM L.)

The demand for wheat is expected to increase due to population explosion but climatic factors such as heat stress are causing serious threat to wheat production.The present investigation was, therefore carried out to study the genetic variability for yield and its attributing morphological, physiological and quality traits.The comparative analysis of genotype performance across both environments revealed that heat stress had a pronounced detrimental impact on all traits evaluated.Severe heat stress resulted in decreased yield, while simultaneously enhancing flour quality traits such as WGC, PC, and SV in the wheat genotypes.The effective tillers/plant, spike length, grains/spike, biological yield/plant (g), harvest index, grain yield/plant (g), grain filling rate (g/day), grain filling duration and stem solidness showed moderate to high GCV and PCV, high heritability and moderate to high genetic advance as per cent mean under both conditions which may be attributed to the preponderance of additive gene action and possessed high selective value and thus, selection pressure could profitably be applied on these characters for their rationale improvement and also showed greater diversity among the genotypes for these traits.The genotype GS/2019-20/7004 was found to be superior for the traits GY, ET, GFD, CCI and NDVI under heat stress environments.The mentioned genotypes offer substantial potential for upcoming wheat breeding projects aimed at increasing wheat yield by enhancing tolerance to environmental stressors.