The study examines the level of manifestation of the heterosis effect in hybrid populations, which increases the efciency of the selection process of winter wheat based on the number of grains in the main ear. 30 hybrid combinations were created using a complete diallel crossings scheme for six varieties of soft winter wheat with wheat-rye translocations (WRT): 1AL.1RS – Ekspromt, Zolotokolosa, Kolumbiia and 1BL.1RS – Kalynova, Svitanok Myronivskyi, Lehenda Myronivska. The Svitanok Myronivskyi variety used in crossbreeding gave the hybrids inheriting the studied trait mainly by additive effect, while with the use of Ekspromt, Zolotokolosa, Lehenda Myronivska, Kalynova, Kolumbiia varieties the hybrids inherited the trait by non-additive effect. The best in terms of the number of cases with high effects of total combining ability (TCA) on the number of grains per main ear were the WRT-carriers varieties: 1BL.1RS – Lehenda Myronivska, 1AL.1RS – Zolotokolosa and Kolumbiia. Regardless of the weather conditions of the year, a heterosis effect was found in the 1BL.1RS / 1BL.1RS crossing group and transgressive forms were selected in the following generations. The highest value of the trait was found in the following populations: F2 – Zolotokolosa / Kolumbiia, Svitanok Myronivskyi / Ekspromt (32.1 % each), Kalynova / Zolotokolosa (31.7 %); F3 – Kolumbiia / Zolotokolosa (41.5 %), Kolumbiia / Ekspromt (36.5 %) and others. In most of them, the translocation 1AL.1RS carrier varieties were the parent components.
Key words: soft winter wheat, wheat-rye translocations, number of grains per main ear, general combining ability, specifc combining ability, heterosis, transgressions.