Performances of advanced bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) mutant lines for grain yield and some yield components.

This research was conducted to assess yield and some yield components of 65 advanced bread wheat mutant lines of M6 generation selected from M4 populations of 4 different bread wheat genotypes. They were sown using an augmented design consisting of five blocks of which every block had 13 mutant advanced lines and 4 check genotypes (parents) in the 2014-2015 growing season. According to the data obtained from the experiment, there was a great variation for plant height (69.15-119.56 cm), spike length (9.26-11.78 cm), number of grains per spike (30.59-59.84), grain weight per spike (1.43-3.13 g), harvest index (32.57-48.37%), thousand grain weight (34.13- 55.93 g) and grain yield (4712-9515 kg ha^-1). The 33 lines for plant height, 22 lines for spike length, 21 lines for the number of grains per spike, 31 lines for grain weight per spike, 35 lines for harvest index, 30 lines for 1000 grain weight and 33 lines for grain yield have been found to perform better than check genotypes. According to the results of the study, MT35, MT14, MT27, MT19, MT20 and MT15 advanced mutant lines were superior to the parents in more than one trait. These mutant lines were selected for pre-registration yield trials, and they may prove useful as a parent for yield improvement in a wheat breeding program. Gamma irradiations with 100 and 200 Gy may be more beneficial for yield improvement in wheat mutation breeding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]