ASHOK, YOGENDER KUMAR* AND SACHIN
Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding,
CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar-125 004 (Haryana), India
*(e-mail: yogenderkgulia@gmail.com)
(Received : 5 March 2024: Accepted : 26 March 2024)
SUMMARY
The current study aimed at identification and incorporation of key traits in developing high yielding barley varieties through assessment of various morpho-physiological characters and their relative direct and indirect contribution towards grain yield. The experiment was carried out with 44 barley germplasm lines at the Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar during 2021-22 under timely sown and heat stress conditions. The association study under both the environments revealed significant positive correlation of grain yield with biological yield per plant, days to maturity, harvest index, number of grains per spike, spike length, number of effective tillers per plant and 1000-grain weight at genotypic level. Similarly, under both environments, all the studied physiological traits viz., canopy temperature depression at anthesis and 15 days after anthesis, normalized difference vegetation index at anthesis and at 15 day after anthesis; and SPAD chlorophyll content at anthesis and at 15 days after anthesis also possessed positive significant relationship with grain yield per plant. The perusal of path coefficient analysis revealed that biological yield per plant, harvest index, spike length, 1000-grain weight, days to heading, peduncle length and number of grains per spike along with all the physiological traits under study had positive direct effect on grain yield per plant under timely as well as heat stress conditions. Consequently, it is suggested that these parameters can be considered as key component traits while setting the selection criterion for barley improvement for timely sown and heat stress conditions.
Key words: Barley, correlation coefficient, heat stress, path analysis