Grain Yield, Heat use Efficiency and Water use Efficiency of Diverse Wheat (Tritcum aetivum L.) Varieties under Different Sowing Environments in North-Western India

Abstract

Background: Wheat is an important food crop of world. This crop has the wider adaptability due to its genetic makeup. The sowing environment and varieties interaction plays important role to enhance its productivity and optimum utilization of the resources. As this crop has wider adaptability so we planned our experiment to study the grain yield, heat use and water use efficiency of diverse wheat varieties which have been recommended in different wheat growing zones, sown at different environment in North-western India, to increase the varietal spectrum.Methods: The field experiment was conducted in 2017-18 and 2018-19 at the research farm of the Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, India. The experiment was conducted with four sowing dates (November 5, November 25, December 15 and January 5) in main plot and six wheat varieties (HS 562, HD 2967, HD 3086, HI 1544, MACS 6222 and WR 544) in sub-plot of split plot design with three replications. Result: The wheat crop sown on November 5 recorded the highest emergence count, plant height, heat use efficiency, normalized difference vegetative index, yield attributes, grain yield and water use efficiency than later sowing dates. Among the wheat varieties, HS 562 recommended for northern hill zone recorded heat use efficiency, helio-thermal use efficiency, at Leaf value, effective tillers, grains per earhead, grain yield and water use efficiency similar to HD 3086 recommended for North-western zone. The varieties recommended for other zones like HI 1544, MACS 6222 and WR 544 could not perform similar to the HD 3086.