Comparison of Different Planting Methods in Relation to Grain Yield of Wheat

The objective of this paper was to evaluate the adequacy of different methods of planting in small plots and compared with the grain yield rank of wheat genotypes in large plots under different planting densities. Significant differences were found among cultivars, same cultivars under different planting densities, years of testing and planting densities. The estimated values of heritability in narrow sense for grain yield were high and varied from 68 to 99%, depending on the method of planting and planting density. Comparison of correlation among cultivar’s rank between Method 1 (planting with drilling machine) and other Methods (manual planting) revealed that these relationships were dependant upon the year of testing and varied from low to high, positive or negative and from significant to non-significant. The highest correlation was found between Method 1 and Method 3 (20 kernels/hill) in both years of testing. If we wish to test a larger number of genotypes from gene bank collections or advanced lines in early phase of breeding program for grain yield on small plots we can recommend the use of hill plots with planting density as close as possible to those in large plots.