Tolerance of Wheat mutant (Triticum aestivum L.) genotypes in lowland against limited water availability

Abstract

A study was carried out from October to December 2017 as part of a development program for wheat plants tolerant to drought in Indonesian lowlands. Three conditions of water availability used were 81-100%, 61-80% and 41-60% of the field capacity tested on 13 wheat genotypes resulted from a wheat plant breeding program. As a comparison, 2 varieties of wheat were used namely Dewata and Munal. The experiment was carried out in the Greenhouse of the Faculty of Agriculture, Hasanuddin University using a Split Plot Design with water conditions as the main plot and genotype as the subplots. The results showed that the wheat mutant genotypes with production higher than the comparison varieties in lower water availability conditions of 61-80% and 41-60% of field capacity (fc) were Nias 250 4.6.2 and Nias 350 3.8.9. Both genotypes yielded 1.95 g.plant-1 and 1.10 g.plant-1, respectively in the 61-80% fc and only produced 0.40 g.plant-1 in 41-60% fc water level. In addition, the genotypes were categorized as tolerant based on the stress tolerance index.