Comparative study of morphological traits in wheat and triticale

Triticale (Triticosecale), a new man made cereal, is known to be more drought tolerant and high yielding. An experiment comprising eight genotypes each of wheat and triticale was conducted at the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Agricultural University Peshawar during 2002-2003. The experiment was planted in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with two replications. Data were collected on plant height, spike lets spike/sup -1/, spike length and harvest index. Data for all the traits were statistically analyzed. All genotypes were observed to be significantly different for plant height, spike lets spike/sup -1/ and spike length but non-significantly different for harvest index. Heritability estimates for plant height, spike lets spike/sup -1/ and spike length were 90%, 98% and 84%, respectively. Significant genotypic and phenotypic correlations were detected between plant height with spike length and spike lets spike/sup -1/, while non-significant correlations were found between spike lets spike/sup -1/, spike length and plant height. Morphologically, triticale appeared to be better than wheat, but the experiment needs to be repeated for getting more explicit conclusions. (author)