EXOTIC WHEAT GENOTYPES RESPONSE TO WATER-STRESS CONDITIONS

Abstract

Drought is the most devastating abiotic stress which has significantly threatened global wheat production. The recent study was designed to evaluate the performance of eight exotic wheat lines through the Drought Spring Bread Wheat Yield Trial (DSBWYT), along with a local drought-tolerant check cultivar, Khirman, under water-stressed conditions based on agronomic and yield-related traits. The experiment was conducted during cropping season 2019–2020 in a randomized complete block design with three replications at the Nuclear Institute of Agriculture (NIA), Tando Jam, Pakistan. The analysis of variance revealed that there was a significant difference among the genotypes for all studied traits. The genotype DSBWYT-8 possessed better agronomic traits and growth features like early growth vigor and early ground cover. On the other hand, the genotype DSBWYT-4 performed better in yield and yield-related traits like main spike yield, grains per spike, and 1000-grains weight. Both genotype revealed excellent plot grain yield and harvest index and were not significantly different from each other. The cluster analysis grouped all the genotypes into three clades. The drought-tolerant local check cultivar Khirman clustered with genotypes DSBWYT-2, DSBWYT-4, and DSBWYT-8 thus, this clade can be regarded as drought tolerant. The second cluster comprised of two genotypes, i.e., DSBWYT-1 and DSBWYT-5, which performed relatively low as compared to genotypes present in the drought-tolerant cluster, whereas the genotypes DSBWYT-3, DSBWYT-6, and DSBWYT-7 clustered together to represent low yielding genotypes under drought condition as compared with the check cultivar Khirman. Based on these results, the genotypes DSBWYT-2, DSBWYT-4, and DSBWYT-8 can be recommended as the drought-tolerant genotypes.