This work was carried out at the Field Crop Institute-Agricultural Experimental Station of Setif (Algeria) during the 2008/2009 cropping season. The objective was to evaluate some pheno-morpho-physiological and agronomic traits in five durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) varieties and F2 segregating lines. The results indicate the presence of a good amount of variability for the measured traits. Low relationships between wheat productivity and the physiological traits is found, which makes them less effective as selection criteria in the case of this study. However, the above-ground biomass measured at maturity stage seems to be the determinant factor in grain yield expression. High heritability associated with high coefficients of phenotypic and genotypic variation values, along with high genetic gain are recorded for the above-ground biomass and spikes weight per plant, suggesting that early selection based on these traits would be effective to improve the stress tolerance and enhance the productivity of the F2 studied populations.
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