Evaluation of tolerance to drought stress in wheat genotypes

Abstract

In order to evaluate the effect of terminal drought stress on 15 wheat cultivars and for determining their relative tolerance, two separate experiments were conducted based on a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replication over the two years (2015-2016 and 2016-2017) at the Research Station of Agricultural Faculty of Islamic Azad University of Tabriz, Iran. Results from combined analysis of variance showed that there is a significant difference in 1% of probability level among genotypes in terms of grain yield. Stress Tolerance Index (STI), Mean Productivity (MP) and Geometric Mean Productivity (GMP) have the highest correlation with wheat grain yield in both stress and non-stress conditions. Principle component analysis shows that first and second components justify 98.74% of changes. The results show that Azar 2 has the highest grain yield under stress and non-stress condition and it can be selected as the best genotype in terms of yield.