Association Studies on Grain Yield and Its Determining Characters in Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

Correlation analysis in wheat helps identify relationships among agronomic, physiological, and yield traits, guiding crop improvement. A major contributing element to crop improvement can be found by evaluating the degree of relationship between variables like plant height, number of tillers, spike length, grain weight, and yield. Understanding these relationships enables plant breeders to optimize trait selection, and enhance wheat productivity under diverse climatic conditions. Grain yield per plant showed strong positive associations with key yield traits such as productive tillers, biological yield, 1000-grain weight, and harvest index, indicating their importance in yield improvement. Negative correlations with maturity traits and plant height suggest that early, compact genotypes are more productive, supporting trait-based selection in wheat breeding.