Characterization of wheat-barley introgression lines for drought tolerance

Abstract

The safety of wheat production in Hungary requires the propagation of droughttolerant cultivars because of the regular occurrence of water deficiency. Hybridization between related species makes it possible to transfer desirable traits from one species to another. Introgression lines developed from wheat/barley hybrids were investigated together with the parental wheat and barley cultivars to determine how the added barley chromosome (segment) influences drought tolerance in wheat. The plants were grown in the field at the UP Georgikon Faculty, Keszthely. Sowing and harvest were done by hand. Half the length of the 12 m rows was covered with a plastic rain shelter on 2 nd April (EC: 30–31) to protect the plants from rain, resulting in a 163 mm difference in water supplies between the control (not covered) and stressed (covered) treatments. Data were obtained for anthesis and maturity date, plant height, root/shoot ratio, leaf water potential, grain yield and grain yield components. The plants adapted to water deficiency by increasing the root/shoot ratio and decreasing the water potential and the duration of grain filling. The grain yield was reduced by 12%, averaged over the genotypes, mainly due to a decrease in the number of spikes per plant.