A new selection criterion for yield in wheat

Summary The mortality of young tillers to an extent of 36.5% under optimum cultural conditions was recorded in a field experiment. Attention is drawn to the necessity of minimising this loss and to diverting it towards productive tillers by applying selection pressure. Future yield advances may be achieved by selecting genotypes which tiller moderately in the vegetative phase, most of which survive to produce grains. The character association of each variety under consideration was studied for the suitability towards this objective. A modified selection procedure is suggested which may be advantageously applied to achieve this objective. The proposed new methodology may also be effectively applied to such other cereal crops as barley, triticale and oats.