Abstract

The gene effects for five quantitative characters were studied in ten crosses of bread wheat. The dominance component was positive and highly significant for all the traits in all the crosses except for spike length. The additive component was also present in sizeable proportion. Additive x additive for spike length and grain weight, additive X dominance for productive tillers and grain yield/plant and dominance X domi- nance for grains/spike were the major components of genetic variance, Complementary type of epistasis was more common for productive tillers. Brains/spike and grain yield/ plant. Four crosses, Kalyansona'x HD 1949, "Kalayansona' x 'K68'. 'Lerma rojo' x 'HD 1949' and 'HD 1949 x 'K 68 were identified as promising. They could be used in wheat breeding programme to exploit both additive and additive x additive compon- ents in varietal improvement programmes through the use of biparental mating in F, generation.

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