Evaluation of grain yield of recombinant inbred lines of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) derived from SeriM82/Babax cross under drought stress conditions

To compare the grain yield potential of recombinant inbred lines of bread wheat derived from SeriM82/Babax,cross under drought stress conditions and also to study the relationship between grain yield and other related traits for the indirect selection of superior genotypes, 167 recombinant inbred lines of bread wheat along with their parental lines were evaluated using alpha-lattice design with two replication in two separate normal and drought stress conditions in Yazd Research Station in 2013-14 and 2014-2015 growing seasons. The results of combined analysis of variance showed significant differences among genotypes. High genetic variation was observed in all traits, indicating a high breeding value potential in this population which facilitate selection of superior lines with drough tolerance. Days to flowering had significant relationship with grain yield under drought stress conditions, and therefore, lines with shorter days to flowering could be selected for drought-prone envirnments. The results of stepwise regression analyisis as well as path coefficients analysis showed that 1000-gain weight and spike length were the most effective attributes in determininggrain yield, which can be used as selction criteria for indirect selection for grain yield in wheat breeding programs for drough prone environments. Consecuently due to the low heritability of grain yield, it could not be considered as a proper trait to select under drought stress condition and it’s better to use traits with high correlation with grain yield, e.g. number of grains, mean of grain weight and phonological sttributes of plant.