Triple test cross analysis for salinity tolerance in wheat

Triple test cross analysis applied to study additive, dominance and epistatic components of genetic variation for five seedling traits namely shoot length, fresh shoot weight, root length, fresh root weight and root shoot ratio at two salinity levels 0 (control) and 10 dSm/sup -1/ in wheat. The results revealed that the epistatic component is an important element for salinity tolerance at seedling stage in wheat. Both additive and dominance gene effects were involved in the inheritance of shoot length, fresh shoot weight, root length fresh root weight and root shoot ratio Complete dominance was indicated for shoot length, fresh root weight and root/shoot ratio and partial dominance was observed for other traits at control and over dominance was observed for shoot length, fresh shoot weight and root/shoot ratio, complete dominance for fresh root weight and partial dominance for root length at 10 dSm/sup -1/ salinity level. Significant epitasis was observed for all the traits except shoot length at both the salinity treatments. (author)