Abstract

Wheat (Triticum durum L.) is the leading source of cereal and vegetable protein in human food, having higher protein content than either maize (corn) or rice, the other major cereals. The objective was to study the association among grain yield and related traits and identify traits those have the most direct and indirect effects on grain yield. Sixty eight durum wheat accessions tested in an augmented block design. Twelve yield and related traits were recorded in the investigation. Analysis of variance revealed highly significant differences among accessions for all traits. Grain yield showed positive and significant correlation with grain filling period, productive tillers per plant, number of grains per spike, spikelets per spike, 1000 grain weight, biological yield and harvest index at both phenotypic and genotypic levels. This implies that through improving these traits possible to improve grain yield. Path coefficient analysis showed that harvest index and biological yield revealed high positive direct effect and positively high significant correlations with grain yield. Indicated these two characters can be considered for direct selection. However the present outcome is only an indication and we cannot reach a definite conclusion. Therefore, it is sensible to conduct a follow up study by incorporating more characters over different years and locations.

Keywords: Durum wheat accessions; Yield related traits; Ethiopia