Morpho-physiological characterization of Indian wheat genotypes and their evaluation under drought condition

Abstract

To study the morpho-physiological and genetic diversity analysis of Indian wheat cultivars a total of 10 genotypes were collected namely: HD-2133, HUW-825, R-54, K-9533, V-110, V-70, HUW-213, V-23, VWTH-08-07 and HUW-37 to evaluate the genotypes under drought stress the seeds of 10 varieties were treated with polyethylene glycol (PEG) for inducing stress condition. Among the morphological characteristics of wheat genotypes under controlled and treatment condition the characters as; leaf area, numbers of productive tillers/plants, days of maturity were recorded at pre harvest stage and seeds per spike, length of spike and grain yield per plant were recorded at post harvest stage. In the present study, significant reduction in yield components like seeds per spike, number of filled and unfilled seeds per spike and final grain yield was observed in all the test genotypes when drought was imposed at seed stage by treating with PEG. After PEG treatment, the wheat variety V-110, performed better under artificially imposed drought condition and can be considered as drought tolerant variety.

Keywords: Wheat, morphological parameters, physiological growth attributes, proline

African Journal of Biotechnology, Vol 13(20), 2022-2027