Grain Yield Components of Winter Wheat New Cultivars in Correlation with Sowing Rate

During the process of plant breeding and selection of new winter wheat cultivars a lot of attention is paid to the improvement of the main components of grain yield-number of ears/m2, number of grains per ear and 1000 seed weight. Production of cultivars that achieve a large number of fertile ears per unit area, a large number of grains per ear and a heavy 1000 seed weight, even with a lower density, would mean that a high grain yield is achieved with lower costs. It is of great importance for wheat production in Croatia. Along with the research on sowing rate influence (400, 500, 600 and 700 germinable seeds/m2) on winter wheat grain yield, other trials were done on the grain yield components (number of ears per unit area, number of grains per ear and 1000 seed weight) during periods 1996–1997 and 1997–1998 both on three AG cultivars of winter wheat Lara, Kruna and Lenta and on the check cultivar Ẑitarka. The trial was done according to the split-plot method in 4 replications. Statistically speaking, various sowing rates had a very significant influence on the number of ears per unit area. The largest number was achieved with the sowing rate of 700 germinable seeds/m2 (783,38 ears/m2). This number of ears is statistically more significant (P