High-Throughput Phenomic Characterization of Wheat Grain Architecture and Diversity for Conventional Morpho-Physiological Traits

Grain morphology affects the weight of grain which ultimately affects grain yield in wheat. Several morpho-physiological traits influence grain morphology. To assess the diversity for morpho-physiological traits and to characterize wheat for grain morphology, a collection comprising of 60 wheat varieties were explored. The ANOVA showed significant differences between varieties for all the parameters except grain thickness, peduncle length, and plant height. Descriptive statistics indicated that the collection of germplasm contained enough variability for the traits under consideration. Grain architectural traits showed positive significant correlations with most of the metric traits suggesting several criteria for indirect selection of traits like grain yield. A positive significant correlation of WUE was observed with grain morphology traits viz: grain width, grain size, grain thickness and grain volume. While 1000 grain weight, water use efficiency, grain length, grain width, grain size, grain thickness and grain volume showed positive significant correlation with grain yield. Principal component analysis extracted seven significant PCs having a cumulative variance of 78.87%. This variation was quite encouraging to initiate a breeding program to improve grain morphology and morpho-physiological traits. The PC1 indicted that grain width, unproductive water use, grain area size, and grain volume were the most diverse traits. In PC2, the maximum positive contribution towards variation was shown by the grain area, grain length and grain volume. The cluster analysis grouped varieties into seven clusters of high, medium, and low performance based on morphology and grain architecture traits. This classification might help in the selection of high and low performing varieties and could be used as parents in hybridization program. © 2021 Friends Science Publishers