Evaluation genetic inheritance and response to selection of leaf rolling and some drought related traits in bread wheat

Wheat production has been challenging with drought stress in the most parts of Iran. In drought prone environments, the first strategy is breeding for higher grain yield. Grain yield is strongly affect with genotype by environment interaction, whereas this interaction is comparatively small for the secondary traits.In this research, genetic control of drought related secondary traits such as leaf-rolling were evaluated using 9×9 diallel analysis in a randomized complete block design with three replications in Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman research field. Low Baker ratio (0.25) and narrow sense heritability (0.20) showed the central role of non-additive effects on genetic control of leaf-rolling. Hence, bulk, single seed decent, and double haploid procedures are proposedfor breeding this trait. Moreover, flag leaf length, peduncle length and plant height had high narrow sense heritability (0.65, 0.56 and 0.51, respectively) and Baker ratio (0.67, 0.65 and 0.46, respectively). These results showed that pedigree and back cross methods are appropriate for breeding these traits. Total tiller number (22%), peduncle length (19%), flag leaf width (15%) and plant height (14%) had the highest response to selection. This is because of either high phenotypic variability or narrow sense heritability of these traits.