Abstract
: The current study was conducted for the estimation of correlation, heritability and genetic distance in eight wheat genotypes in RCBD having three replications at the Botanical Garden, Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam, Sindh, Pakistan during the crop season of 2017-18. The mean squares displayed that majority of the characters exposed highly significant differences in all the tested genotypes, showing that exploited wheat genotypes retain valuable genetic resources, hence may be used in future breeding programs. Considering the mean performance of wheat genotypes, results revealed that the genotype TD-1 performed excellently for all the attributes, but other genotypes like AS-2002, Hamal, Abadgar and Moomal performed normally. These genotypes tend to have promising genetic potential, therefore preference should be given in upcoming breeding programs. Correlation exhibited very beneficial results in which plant height, tillers plant-1, grains spike-1, spikelets spike-1 and seed index were associated positively and highly significantly with grain yield plant-1 with the correlation coefficient of r = 0.6694**, r = 0.7522**, r = 0.7550**, r = 0.6247** and r = 0.6348**), But these yield related traits also manifested good associations with the rest of the characteristics which confirmed a lot of genetic variability present in these genotypes. Heritability displayed the best outcomes in the genotypes in which high heritability estimates were observed for plant height (h2 = 98.70%), tillers plant-1 (h2 =99.74%), grains spike-1 (h2 =99.54%), spikelets spike-1 (h2 =70.53%), seed index (h2 = 90.68%) and grain yield plant-1 (h2 =90.15%). High heritability values for these characteristics manifested that the variation detected was more under genetic control than under environmental control which expressed the influence of additive gene action. The results regarding genetic distance demonstrated that the greater genetic distance of 51.801 was found between Abadgar and Moomal, followed by Abadgar and TD-1 (49.496), Moomal and PBG-ST03 (47.804), Moomal and TD-1 (43.162), Moomal and KKK (42.855), TD-1 and PBG-ST03 (42.230), Moomal and AS-2002 (41.719), Moomal and Hamal (40.181) and Moomal and Imdad (39.701)
