Yield stability and drought resistance in wheat

Abstract

There is little information on interaction between productivity, stability and drought resistance of crop. This problem is very important in Kazakhstan, where the most of the agricultural area is located in arid and semiarid regions. In this context the genotype × environment interaction (GEI) is of major importance to the plant breeders in developing improved drought resistant cultivars. In this study GEI and stability parameters of recombinant inbred lines (RILs) has been determined by field testing at three contrasting environments. The comparison of the performance and stability of the lines L3, L10, L5, L1 indicated that this breeding material tended to display better performance for main of productivity traits and stability for plant grain yield as compared with other RILs and parental forms. There was positive association between high leaf Relative Water Content (RWC), low leaf Relative Water Loss (RWL) and yield stability. Both physiological parameters (RWC and RWL) are good indicators of drought adaptation by wheat genotypes. A comparison of glume pubescent and unpubescent lines has shown close negative correlation for spike RWL and spike RWC of all pubescent RILs (R2= -0.845). So the glume pubescence can be used as a morphological marker and indirect criterion for selection of drought resistant genotypes. As a result several promising lines combining high yield stability and drought resistance has been selected and used in breeding program.