Drought is one of the most challenging issues in agriculture which jeopardizes the production of agricultural products, including wheat. Breeding plans to improve performance and increase drought tolerance is a major issue. Mahdavi and Roushan cultivars were crossed to increase grain yield under drought stress condition. Genetic diversity and genetic control of grain yield, yield components and drought related traits were evaluated using North Carolina Design III (NCD III). Considerable genetic

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... variation in population was existed. Epistasis had significant role in genetic control of days to maturity, plant height, tiller number, 1000-grain weight and spike length. Meanwhile, dominance variance was greater than additive for flag leaf length and area. Bulk method is suitable for breeding this trait. For other traits epistasis was not significant and additive variance was greater than dominance in genetic control of these traits. These results showed that selection in the segregate generations of these traits could be effective and pedigree method or back cross is recommended for future breeding program of these traits. Path analysis showed that number of seeds per plant had the highest direct and indirect effect on grain yield.