Evaluation of some properties of Iranian wheat genotypes in normal and salt-stressed conditions using Restricted Maximum Likelihood (REML)

Applying an appropriate statistical analysis is complementary for conducting a robust experimental design in plant and animal breeding. In these experiments 33 Iranian bread wheat genotypes, cultivated in a randomized complete blocks design with three replications in two normal and saline conditions were evaluated at the field of National Salinity Research Center located in Yazd province, Iran. The restricted maximum likelihood (REML) was used to evaluate the different genotypic variance-covariance structures and to estimate the genotypic and phenotypic correlations of some of Iranian wheat traits under two normal and salt-stressed conditions. The Using different estimation by REML method the traits of grain yield, biological yield and harvest index had different and significant values across two conditions, this genetic variability can be used for salinity tolerance of bread wheat in breeding programs.. In addition, genotype by environment interaction for all traits was not significant, especially for grain yield as important trait for evaluation of salinity tolerance in wheat. The means comparisons of genotypes showed that the SALT22, SALT29 and SALT28 had the highest values and line No. 6, Shahpasand and line No.13 had the lowest values for grain yield, respectively. There were significantly positive genetic correlation between yield with biological yield (0.97) and harvest index (0.94) in combined analysis and negative genetic correlation for days to maturity with grain yield (-0.32) in saline condition by REML estimator. So, the selection of early maturing genotypes with higher yield in the saline condition, especially in the location of conducted experiment (Yazd) is achievable and selection can be done to improve the performance of salinity stress.