Hybrid Breeding in Durum Wheat: Heterosis and Combining Ability

Hybrid breeding facilitates a maximum exploitation of heterosis. The objectives of our research were to (i) examine the magnitude of heterosis over the mid‐ and better parent for yield, yield components, and quality traits in Central European spring durum wheat and (ii) investigate the efficiency of parental selection based on mid‐parent value or general combining ability effects. Sixteen inbred lines and 40 incomplete factorial crosses were field‐evaluated for eight agronomic traits at 10 environments in Germany. For grain yield, the hybrids yielded on average 10% higher than the mid‐parent performance, and the maximum superiority was 22%. The significantly positive contrast between inbreeding depression and mid‐parent heterosis for grain yield indicated the presence of positive additive x additive epistatic interactions. Furthermore, the best hybrid outperformed the best line variety by 1.01 Mg ha−1 We conclude that there is a potential for hybrid breeding in durum wheat.