Evaluation of changes in agronomic traits in bread wheat populations under drought stress

Subject Areas : Crop Production Research

یوسف Arshad ¹ , مهدی Zahravi ² , علی Soltani ³

1 - Improvment
2 - Improvment
3 - Research Center

Received: 2022-01-23 Accepted : 2022-05-05 Published : 2022-05-31

Keywords:

Abstract :

In order to identify drought tolerant genetic sources in wheat and investigate the changes of traits related to this characteristic, a number of 512 accessions from the wheat collection of the National Plant Gene Bank of Iran along with the drought tolerant cultivars Kavir, Roshan and Mahooti were investigated in the field of Yazd Agriculture and Natural Resources Research Center in the form of two separate augmented statistical design (normal irrigation and drought stress). Drought stress was applied by limiting times of irrigation, i.e. once after planting and the other during seed filling stage. In total, 66 accessions were survived and the evaluation of agronomic traits was carried out according to the international descriptor. The results showed a decrease in the values ​​of all evaluated traits under drought stress condition, and the greatest decrease was in the traits of five-spike seed weight (57.34 %) and number of fertile tillers (48.59 %). A large number of accessions with superior traits compared to the check cultivars were identified under normal and drought stress conditions. Based on the results of principal component analysis under drought stress, the first five components contained 73.84% of the total changes in data. The superior accessions were distinguished based on the characteristics of each component. The studied accessions were separated into four groups with different characteristics using cluster analysis. The results of the present research showed a wide diversity in the evaluated germplasm and the superior accessions identified can be used in future wheat breeding programs to improve tolerance to drought stress.