EVALUATION OF WATER STRESS TOLERANCE IN WHEAT GENOTYPES ON THE BASIS OF PHENOLOGICAL AND MORPHOLOGICAL TRAITS (original) (raw)

The present studies were carried out at the experimental farm of Nuclear Institute of Agriculture (NIA), Tando Jam, Pakistan during wheat growing season 2012-13, to determine the effects of water stress on various Phenological and morphological traits associated with the grain and biomass yield. Twenty newly evolved wheat genotypes developed through conventional breeding at Nuclear Institute of Agriculture Tando Jam were evaluated along with four local varieties (Sarsabz, Khirman, TD-1 and Chakwal-86) under various water stress regimes in field conditions. The experiment was laid out in split plot design with three replications. Results revealed highly significant differences among genotypes, treatments and genotype x treatment interaction for different traits viz., days to 75% booting, grain filling period, days to 75% maturity, tillers plant-1, plant height and peduncle length. Furthermore, significant decrease was observed in days to booting, days to 75% maturity, tillers plant-1 at T1 (66.8, 45.2, 123.4) as compared toT2 (67.5, 48.1, 126.1) respectively. The maximum number of tillers.m-2 and plant height were exhibited by line IBWSN-078- 1174. Cultivar Khirman produced longer peduncle (30.9 cm), while TD-1 and Chakwal-86 took minimum number of days for 75% booting and grain filling (59.6 and 36.8) respectively. The genotype IBWSN-078-1078 matured earlier among all genotypes in 118.11 days.