Heterosis in Durum Wheat

The performance of 36 F1 hybrids involving nine durum wheat varieties of diverse origin was studied to investigate mid-parent and better parent heterosis for grain yield and eight other component characters. The mid-parent and better parent heterosis for grain yield ranged from –3⋅52 to 136⋅70% and from –18⋅02 to 80⋅05% respectively. In all, 24 hybrids showed significant heterosis over the corresponding better parents. Significant values of heterosis over mid-parent as well as better parent were also observed for the other characters, indicating their contribution to the heterosis for grain yield. Four hybrids were significantly earlier than the respective early parents. ‘Stewart 63’ and ‘HD 4500’ stood out as the most divergent parents among the parental lines studied. The observations suggested that a very considerable and, from the plant breeding standpoint, very useful measure of genetic divergence existed among the durum wheat varieties studied.