Hybrids involving diverse parental genotypes generally produce high specific combining ability effects
and hybrid vigor. Therefore, the choice of the suitable breeding program depends on the inheritance of
the quantitative traits. This research aims at detecting the extent of the genetic diversity (GD) among 8
wheat parental genotypes, and its implication on F1 crosses for biological and grain yield plant-1
. Thus
the 8 parents were screened using ten RAPD primers. These primers produced 89 fragments, 58 of
them were polymorphic. A GD value as high as 0.474 was found just one cross (P1xP4). Half diallel
mating, design involving 8 parents, was made to initiate a set of 28 F1 crosses. Parents and their
crosses were tested under normal and drought stress conditions for biological and grain yield per plant.
Genotypes, general (GCA) and specific (SCA) combining ability were significant for the two traits. The
non-additive gene action is substantial in controlling these traits. Five crosses showed all showed
relatively high mean performance and SCA effects for both traits in both and across normal and drought
environment. For biological and per plant grain yield, Pearson’s correlation coefficients with GD were
0.34 and 0.69. Hence, RAPD marker can be used as a tool for determining the extent of genetic diversity
among wheat genotypes and to precisely predict the yield performance value for F1 hybrids.