Genetic Analysis of some Morphological Traits in Durum Wheat by Generation Mean Analysis under Normal and Drought Stress Conditions

Drought stress is one of the most important environmental stresses that reduces grain yield dramatically. Grain yield results as a complex trait from contribution of many traits in plant, and evaluation of morphological traits with less complicated inheritance under different environmental conditions and related to grain yield could be used as selection criteria. To study the genetics of traits related to plant stature and flag leaf area, a cross was made between durum wheat cultivars Oste-Gata (drought tolerant) and Massara-1(susceptible). Their F1, F2 and F3 progenies were evaluated under normal and late-season drought stress using a randomized complete block design. Generation mean analysis was performed by scaling test which essays all generations simultaneously. Analysis of variance of generations showed that all traits except of width of flag leaf, differed significantly between generations. Three parametric models contain m, d and h had the best fit. Although both additive and dominance components were involved in the expression of all the traits under both environments, yet the dominance component suffered more than the additive component. Dominance variance was contributed in plant height, peduncle length and length of flag leaf more than additive variance. Therefore, these traits can not be used as selection criteria. There was no epistatic effect for the studied traits, indicating the lack of gene intractions for the traits in the segregating populations.