Eight bread wheat genotypes were crossed in a8x8half diallel scheme in 2015/2016.Parents and their 28 F1 crosses were evaluated under normal and stress conditions during 2016/2017 in two field experiments. The results of analysis of variance were significant for all studied traits. The highest mean values were detected by parents P2, P2,P8, P2,P6 and p2 for plant height, spike length, no of spike/ plant, 1000-kernel weight, biological yield/ plant and grain yield/ plant in the combined analysis, respectively. While, the highest mean values were recorded under combined analysis with crosses P1xP6 for biological yield/ plant and the cross P2xP4 for grain yield / plant. Mean squares for both general (GCA) and specific (SCA) combining ability estimates were highly significant for all studied traits. The ratios between GCA and SCA exceeded the unity for all studied traits, revealing that additive and additive x additive types of gene action are more important than non-additive gene action in controlling these traits. The parental P6 exhibited positive and significant ĝi effects spike length, no of spikes/ plant, 1000-grain, biological yield/ plant and grain yield/ plant. The highest desirable SCA effects were obtained with the crosses P1xP6, P1xP7, P2xP4, P3xP7, P3xP8, P4xP8, P5xP8 and P6xP7 for grain yield/ plant which exhibited significant and positive ŝij effects |
