A study was conducted during rabi season (October-May), 2018−2019 at the Experimental Farm of Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, CSK HPKV, Palampur (HP), India to develop reliable selection criteria for drought tolerance. 25 advanced breeding lines of different Brassica species were used to determine their mean performance, components of variability, heritability and genetic advance under moisture stress conditions created at rosette stage, flower initiation stage and siliqua formation stage using various agro-morphological and yield contributing traits. Sufficient genetic variability was found for almost all the characters except for 1000-seed weight under non-stress stage conditions. Estimates of parameters of variability revealed that phenotypic coefficients of variation were higher than their respective genotypic coefficients of variation. Under moisture stress conditions, high heritability coupled with high genetic advance was observed for number of secondary branches plant-1 in non-stress and all the moisture-stress stages. Siliqua formation stage was found most susceptible to moisture stress conditions which also led to maximum reduction in seed yield. Using drought susceptibility index, the genotypes HPBS-1 followed by HPKM-04-1 were found to be moderately drought tolerant as these exhibited the lowest drought susceptibility index value in Stage-I and Stage-III while in Stage-II, RCC-4×Varuna followed by HPBS-1 exhibited lowest drought susceptibility index value. Therefore, systematic characterization of differences in physiological responses to drought stress among elite lines is helpful in understanding mechanisms of drought resistance. Hence, traits like primary branches plant-1, secondary branches plant-1, siliquae plant-1, seeds siliqua-1, seed yield plant-1 and 1000-seed weight can be further used in selection criteria for future breeding programme aimed for enhancing drought tolerance.

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Aims: To determine the best selection indices for seed yield improvement in Brassica crops Place of Study: Experimental Farm of Department of Genetics & Plant Breeding, CSK HPKV, Palampur, during rabi 2018-19. Methodology: The experimental material for the investigation comprised of twenty five advanced breeding lines including released varieties of four different Brassica species laid out in randomized complete block design with three replications which were evaluated for correlation (genotypic and phenotypic) studies, direct and indirect effects using various growth parameters and yield contributing traits. Results: Analysis of variance revealed significant genotypic variances for all the growth parameters and seed yield components under study except for Leaf Area Index (LAI), number of primary branches per plant, number of secondary branches per plant, siliquae per plant and harvest index. Correlation coefficients at phenotypic level indicated that seed yield per plant had significant positive correlations with relative growth rate (RGR), leaf area ratio (LAR), number of secondary branches per plant, siliquae per plant, seeds per siliqua, 1000-seed weight, biological yield per plant and harvest index while it had significant negative association with specific leaf weight (SLW), days to 50% flowering, days to 75% maturity and number of primary branches per plant. Path coefficient analysis revealed that biological yield per plant followed by harvest index had high positive direct as well as indirect effects on seed yield. Conclusion: Biological yield per plant and harvest index could be considered most important characters for improvement of seed yield both directly and indirectly in different Brassica species. Therefore, these traits could be preferred as the best selection indices in future for genetic improvement of rapeseed-mustard.

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Selection criteria parameters for improving seed yield in hulled barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) under north-western Himalayan conditions.