Assessment of Drought Resistance in Indian Wheat Cultivars for Morpho-Physiological Traits

Year 2016, Volume: 2 Issue: 1, 74 - 81, 01.01.2016

Renu Munjal Satyavir Singh Dhanda

Abstract

A set of diverse 28 wheat genotypes was evaluated for drought stress related traits, under irrigated and drought stress conditions for two years. The genotypes differed signiŞcantly for all the traits under drought stress environment, while under irrigated conditions nonsigniŞcant differences were observed for triphenyltetrazolium chloride test, cell membrane stability, relative water content and osmotic potential. The genotypes NW 1014 and WH 1127 appeared to be drought tolerant, while C 306, HW 2004, Lok 1, NIAW 34, PBW 175, WH 1098, WH 1126, WH 1142, WH 1181 and WH 1182 indicated a combination of drought tolerance, avoidance and escape mechanisms, the genotypes HD 2858, PBW 343, WH 283 and WH 711 had tendency of escape, but susceptible and the remaining genotypes were susceptible. Correlation coefŞcient analysis indicated that the genotypes having better mitochondrial survival ability, membrane stability and water relation parameters under drought stress also had higher values for grain yield, drought susceptibility index (DSI) and drought response index (DRI). DRI appeared to be the most important among all the traits, because the genotypes having high DRI values also had high grain yield under drought stress conditions and high values for drought related traits

Keywords

bread wheat, water relation parameters, cell membrane stability, drought susceptibility index, drought response index

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