ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECT ONWHEAT PHENOLOGY AND YIELDS

Nine widely grown wheat cultivars and an advance line, representing three major wheat breeding programs of WFP, were field evaluated at Cereal Crop Research Institute, Pirsabak (Nowshera) and Agricultural Research Station, Baffa (Mansehra) during 2006-07 crop season. A randomized complete block design with three replicates was used at each location. The two test locations differed significantly for days to heading, days to maturity, plant height, biological yield, grain yield and harvest index. Highly significant genetic diversity among the wheat genotypes was evident for all traits via independent analysis of variance for each location as well as across locations, but cultivar x location interactions existed for plant height (P 0.05), grain yield (P 0.01) and harvest index (P 0.01) only. Days to heading and maturity of all wheat genotypes were delayed at Mansehra. Biological yield, grain yield and harvest index of ten wheat genotypes averaged 59 vs. 55, 10467 vs. 9878 kg ha^-1, 3914 vs. 3127 kg ha^-1 and 37.3 vs. 31.8% at Mansehra and Nowshera, respectively. It is concluded that wheat cultivars released by the Cereal Crop Research Institute, Pirsabak excelled the group for mean grain yield across locations.