Identification of Bread Wheat Resistant Genotypes to Fusarium Head Blight Disease and Heritability Estimation for Some Traits for Bread Wheat Genotypes

Hexaploid winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L., 2n= 6x= 42, AABBDD) is an important small-grain cereal crop grown for food and feed. In Iran, wheat is the most cultivated cereal crop where winter wheat is ranked 1st in terms of production. Wheat fusarium head blight (FHB) is one of the most important diseases of wheat in humid and hot regions of the world, which causes a decrease in yield and grain quality. Fusarium head blight is caused by Fusarium graminearum. In order to investigate the resistance of some wheat traits against HBF, 27 varieties and lines of bread wheat were sown at the farm of Faculty of Agriculture, Lorestan University. The spikes were infected at the first flowering stage by spray inoculation. The results showed that there was a great diversity among the 27 varieties of bread wheat tested in terms of growth traits, yield components, and grain yield. The results of The Duncan's test for comparing means showed that cultivars Ghods, Shiraz, Morvarid 2, and Pishtaz had a significant superiority in terms of grain yield compared to other cultivars. The results of simple correlation and also stepwise regression analysis showed that the traits of 1000 seed weight, plant height, number of seeds per spike, number of spikes, spike length and plant height are very important traits for grain yield. According to values of broad sense heritability and genetic gain for plant height and high correlation of this trait and seed yield, plant height can be used as a suitable trait for improving seed yield by selection. The overall results showed that Shiraz, Pishtaz, Quds and Morwarid-2 cultivars are suitable for transferring resistance to wheat spike blight disease in breeding programs.