Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is an economically important crop in South Africa and across the world. The ultimate goal of breeding programmes in South Africa is aimed at improving grain yield in order to contribute to increasing wheat production and profitability. The genetic diversity in yield of a wide range of genotypes, particularly historic wheat accessions that have been grown in South Africa for a number of years is not known nor well characterized. In this study, a genotype by sequencing approach has been deployed to explore the genetic diversity of selected yield components such as spike length, number of seeds per spike and seed weight per spike. The genotypic data will be used to explore the genetic diversity in yield amongst a wide range of genotypes. The information will further be used for further downstream applications such as QTL mapping, molecular marker discovery and marker development.