Vol. 9, Special Issue 2, Part G (2025)

The present study involved 100 treatments (10 parents, 45 F₁s, and 45 F₂s) and 10 advanced lines, arranged in a Randomized Block Design during the 2024 Rabi season at three locations: Crop Research Farm (Aligarh), Crop Research Farm (Kaushambi) and Student Instructional Farm (CSAUAT, Kanpur). The experimental material consisted of 10 parental lines (DBW-173, DBW-187, DBW-222, DBW-398, HD-3059, K-1006, PBW-386, PBW-644, HI-1563 and HI-1612). On the partitioning of treatment variances, the mean squares of parents. Parents, F₁s, and F₂s were highly significant for all the 14 traits. Parents vs. F₁s were highly significant for all the traits except the number of spikelets per spike, protein content, and seed hardness while parents vs. F₂s were also found highly significant for almost all the traits except days to 50% flowering, plant height, spike length, number of grains per spike, grain yield per plant indicating much variability in different populations. These lines were crossed using a diallel design to develop 45 F₁s, which were evaluated for 9 traits: number of productive tillers per plant, spike length, number of spikelets per spike, 1000-seed weight, harvest index, plant height, grain yield per plant, biological yield per plant and protein content. Pooled analysis of variance revealed highly significant differences among the varieties and environments for all the characters. The results, therefore, satisfied the basic requirement for the present study.