Screening Durum Wheat Genotypes (Triticum turgidum var. durum Desf.) for Soil Acidity Tolerance

Abstract

The production and productivity of durum wheat is threatened by different biotic and abiotic stresses in different parts of the country. Soil acidity  associated with Al toxicity is one of the limiting a biotic factor for the production of durum wheat. A pot experiment was conducted at Debre Zeit  Agricultural Research Center in 2020. A total of 102 durum wheat genotypes were grown with and without lime treatment to screen the genotypes  for tolerance to soil acidity. The treatments were laid out in Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with two replications. The results of the  experiment showed that shoot and root growth were enhanced under lime treated than untreated conditions. Significant variations were observed  among the durum wheat genotypes for shoot fresh and dry weight, root fresh and dry weights, relative shoot and root yield, root to shoot ratio, and  root volume under both limed and unlimed conditions. Genotypes, that showed consistently better performance based on various growth  parameters used for screening purposes such as shoot and root growth parameters under un-limed condition were selected as acid soil tolerant.  Accordingly, genotypes 81, 24, 2, 71, 90, 74, 70, 6, 18, 102, 17, 98, 4, 60, 96, 99, 15, 62, 32, 93, 91, 77, 30 and 75 were identified as consistently acid  soil tolerant. Among these, thirteen of them (81, 71, 90, 70, 6, 98, 4, 99, 15, 91, 77, 30, and 75 were Ethiopian land races, two of them ( 2 and 60) were  ICARDA materials, four of them (18, 102, 96 and 62) were CIMMYT materials, two of them namely, Tesfaye and Asasa (32 and 93) were  Ethiopian improved varieties, and three of them (24, 74 and 17) were Debre Zeit Agricultural Researcher Center durum wheat breeding program  advanced lines. Thus, the identified acid soil tolerant durum wheat released varieties can be recommended for acid soil affected areas while the rest  tolerant genotypes can be used as parental lines in durum wheat breeding program to develop tolerant varieties for acid soil prone areas of  Ethiopia.