Genetic Diversity and Yield Evaluation of Advanced Wheat Lines Using Agro Morphological Traits and SSR Markers

Crop improvement is the primary goal of plant breeding, and the availability of wide genetic diversity offers breeders the opportunity to enhance targeted traits. This experiment evaluated the ten wheat advanced lines (ALs) with a check variety (BARI Gom 32) to find out their morphological and genetical diversity. The analysis of variance showed significant variation among the studied traits and the ALs. Mean performances recorded the highest grain weight plant ^− 1 in HSTUW 1 (2.81 kg), followed by HSTUW 8 (2.68 kg) and HSTUW 4 (2.67 kg). The correlation analysis revealed a strong positive association between grain yield plant ^− 1 and thousand-grain weight, as well as between spike length, grain weight plant ^− 1 , plant height, and days to maturity. Path analyses showed that the grain weight spike ^− 1 and the thousand-grain weight had higher direct positive effects on the yield plot ^− 1 . The days to maturity, plant height, and number of spikes showed high heritability and genetic advance. The GCV and PCV recorded medium variation. The SSR markers used were found to be polymorphic. A total of 31 alleles were recorded with an average of 7.75 alleles locus ^− 1 . The highest genetic similarity was observed between HSTUW 2 and HSTUW 3 (97%). These ALs can be used for further multi-location yield trials to validate the results for farmers' cultivation.